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THE YEAR WE DISAPPEARED by Cylin Busby

THE YEAR WE DISAPPEARED

A Father-Daughter Memoir

by Cylin Busby & John Busby

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59990-141-1
Publisher: Bloomsbury

In 1979, John Busby, a Falmouth, Mass., cop was shot in the face while driving to work. This alternating father-daughter memoir provides a graphic account of the event and its yearlong aftermath—both directly attributable to a corruption-riddled municipal government. Readers should know that the book depicts Busby’s shooting, injuries and reconstructive surgeries in unrelenting detail. Until the family was secretly relocated, Cylin, nine, and her brothers struggled to manage an intolerable burden of fear, even under 24-hour police protection. The account ends before readers learn how (or if) they made it to adulthood in one piece. Beyond recounting a fascinating, if lurid, tabloid story, neither author offers any analysis or reflection that would allow readers to place the events in a larger context. At once competitive, stubborn and aggressive, Busby’s personality seems to have both prompted the shooting and helped him survive it. The implications of governmental corruption go unnoted, including the official response to the shooting itself—protecting the family with taxpayer-funded firearms and police surveillance, rather than institutional reform. (Memoir. 14 & up)