THE RED-HEADED COOK OF THE DESERT

An unusual biography/memoir reveals the devastating consequences of one woman’s abusive family.

According to author and journalist Muller, the first things she learned about Mathews were that she was a restaurant server and on lifetime parole for murder. Using a series of interviews with Mathews and her friends, family, and former cellmates, blended with autobiographical essays the parolee wrote while incarcerated, Muller crafts a life story redolent with trauma, second chances, and the ability to endure. Mathews was born in California in 1960 to two abusive parents; her mother left the family when she was 3 years old. Drinking and drugs came into Mathews’ life before she was even in high school, but after a stint in the Army and an abusive marriage, she succumbed to multiple vices, including alcohol, cocaine, meth, and gambling. She could not keep a job, money, or custody of her kids as she oscillated among unstable housing, meth binges, and dangerous characters. Even murdering self-confessed killer Frank Belize in her own house (with her children upstairs) could not catalyze her healing. It wouldn’t even be for that homicide that she eventually served over 10 years in prison. She was convicted of the murder of her boyfriend David Hepburn. As Mathews continued to hit bottoms (she says her “bottoms have bottoms”), the stains of her abusive family, poverty, and institutional neglect eroded her ability to stay sober, employed, and present for her kids. Mathews’ life is nothing to envy, but her survival, vividly recounted in these pages, is mind-boggling. Muller meticulously constructs an engrossing account with both Mathews’ voice and her own, drawing readers in until the very end. The tragic heart of Mathews’ gripping story is not so much her crimes but her inability to get herself out of a mindset of deserving her suffering. Mathews’ redemption—which Muller does not oblige readers to accept—came with taking responsibility for her actions while recognizing that “this long history of criminal thinking and behavior, addiction, selfishness, impulsivity, irresponsibility and disregard for society and for human life, along with a lack of accountability,” led her to murder.

A chilling yet compelling look at overcoming the desolation of addiction.