Two hours later, when his adopted daughter, Jennifer, 8, worried that Bobby seemed to be sleeping so late, her father coaxed her into bed with her 12-year-old brother, Christopher. ''We're going to play a game,'' Rowe told them. ''Close your eyes.'' With swift blows, he used the bat to kill them both. At 5 p.m., Rowe called his wife, Mary, at work, urging her to hurry home. When she arrived, he told her: ''Stand in the middle of the room with your eyes closed. The children have a surprise for you.'' ''Facing the Wind'' is the true story of Bob Rowe, whose horrifying murders of his wife and children will remain forever etched in my mind. Julie Salamon, an author of books of both fiction and nonfiction and a television critic for The New York Times, did not set out to write something so dark and powerful. She began interviewing a support group of mothers with blind children, possibly for a book on their experiences raising severely handicapped children. In the hands of so skilled and sensitive a writer, it would no doubt have been enlightening and moving, marginalized nonetheless on the shelves of books dealing with ''women's issues.'' Courtesy of Colleen Rowe
I wonder when the subject of Bob Rowe first came up, and how long it took Salamon to realize that he had just swamped her well-intentioned project. It must have been awkward. For Mary Rowe, his murdered wife, had been a central member of the mothers' group. Their son Christopher had been born blind, deaf and brain-damaged, probably because Mary had been exposed to German measles while pregnant. The group had looked to Mary and Bob -- especially B
Two hours later, when his adopted daughter, Jennifer, 8, worried that Bobby seemed to be sleeping so late, her father coaxed her into bed with her 12-year-old brother, Christopher. ''We're going to play a game,'' Rowe told them. ''Close your eyes.'' With swift blows, he used the bat to kill them both. At 5 p.m., Rowe called his wife, Mary, at work, urging her to hurry home. When she arrived, he told her: ''Stand in the middle of the room with your eyes closed. The children have a surprise for you.'' ''Facing the Wind'' is the true story of Bob Rowe, whose horrifying murders of his wife and children will remain forever etched in my mind. Julie Salamon, an author of books of both fiction and nonfiction and a television critic for The New York Times, did not set out to write something so dark and powerful
. She began interviewing a support group of mothers with blind children, possibly for a book on their experiences raising severely handicapped children. In the hands of so skilled and sensitive a writer, it would no doubt have been enlightening and moving, marginalized nonetheless on the shelves of books dealing with ''women's issues.'' Courtesy of Colleen Rowe
I wonder when the subject of Bob Rowe first came up, and how long it took Salamon to realize that he had just swamped her well-intentioned project. It must have been awkward. For Mary Rowe, his murdered wife, had been a central member of the mothers' group. Their son Christopher had been born blind, deaf and brain-damaged, probably because Mary had been exposed to German measles while pregnant. The group had looked to Mary and Bob -- especially B