
- English
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About this book
In March of 1953, Donald Watkins, a former Marine who served in China during the Japanese invasion of 1937, murdered his wife and mother-in-law. After serving twenty-two years in Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he was released and eventually married again. A decade later, Donald may or may not have been the cause of his second wife's death, as well.
Author Diane Cameron uncovers the true story of her stepfather, Donald Watkins. Was he a traumatized veteran? A victim of abuse in the mental-health system? Was he a criminal? Mentally ill? Or just eccentric?
As she unravels this mystery, Cameron finds healing and understanding with her own struggles and history of family abuse. She discovers an unlikely collection of role models in the community of the China Marines, as they were known. Together, they help put the pieces of shared war experience in perspective and resolve the more complex issue of understanding trauma itself.
With insights drawn from diverse experts such as Thomas Szasz and Bessel van der Kolk, Cameron unlocks the connection between the experience of veterans of past wars and those who deal with the war trauma today.
Diane Cameron is an award-winning columnist. An excerpt from Never Leave Your Dead was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review and was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Prologue: The Murder—March 7, 1953
- Chapter One: My Mother’s Donald
- Chapter Two: Getting to Know Donald
- Chapter Three: Out of Order
- Chapter Four: For God and Country
- Chapter Five: Missing History: Donald’s Past Has a Past
- Chapter Six: Nuts for the Nation: St. Elizabeths Hospital
- Chapter Seven: Semper Fi: There’s No Purple Heart for Falling Apart
- Chapter Eight: They Brought Home More Than Souvenirs
- Chapter Nine: When My Mother Told Me
- Chapter Ten: Cold Storage: Farview State Hospital
- Chapter Eleven: Unveiling the Myth of Thomas Szasz
- Chapter Twelve: Getting Help and Getting Home Again
- Chapter Thirteen: Donald Crosses the Line
- Chapter Fourteen: There Are So Many Donalds
- Chapter Fifteen: Still Crazy After All These Years
- Chapter Sixteen: Iambic Pentameter and the Meter of War
- Chapter Seventeen: Never Leave Your Dead
- Acknowledgments and Thanks
- The Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Resources for Veterans and Their Families and Friends