Ms Garner takes this project on in the aftermath of the collapse of her third marriage. 18 months after the event at the centre of this book. although there is a reluctance she is drawn in to a story. Murder suicide discussed at dinner parties by bright young things and then carried out. Although professing an open mind, from the opening of this book her view of protagonist Anu Singh is guilty as charged. As much based on her (the writer's intuition) as the evidence of a second, judge only trial. Then the book is justified as a means to bring the forgotten person in this story, the murdered Joe Cinque, into focus and give witness; tell his part of the story. It does not do so with any effect until the last chapters and then only in part with less attention or depth, analysis or concentration than is given to either Anu Singh or her co-charged Madhavi Rao. Yes the story of befriending his grieving, devastated parents is told. But they have more meat on their story than does Joe. It is very much Ms Garner's journey into darkness regarding the trials, courts, legal system, expert witnesses-particularly unilluminating because she has already decided she knows Anu Singh and 'her sort of woman' well.
Only the chapter (a later discussion with the judge from both trials this book examines in depth, Justice Ken Crispin) that asks of the morality and ethics in our legal system as opposed to justice is thought provoking/engaging; providing the sense the writer is thinking outside of her preconceptions. It is ironic this discussion tagged onto the end of the process does not seem to cause the author to reflect on her thinking about the view she has formed other than to wring her hands that it is more complex an issue than just guilty as charged.
Likewise Helen Garner exposes a poor understanding of a range of mental health conditions and the expert and divisive (contradictory) expert evidence that is part of the territory of these areas. I found her marginalisation of Professor Paul Mullen breath taking. I know his work on stalkers and querulous litigants well. Professor Mullen has international standing for his work in forensic psychiatry-the respect he is held in is due to his experience and knowledge of working with people with severe personality disorders. Ms Garner appears to sniff at this, his Englishness (I thought he was a New Zealander), and to dismiss his views because they do not concur with hers. Forged from background reading and her days in court observing the accused, her friends or social group and the family of Joe Cinque and then fitting this in to what she thinks and knows. Professor Mullen's cannot, being a gun for hire, see the obvious. How could Anu Singh be anything other than a cold blooded and manipulative killer using psychiatric babble to pull the wool over our eyes! Isn't it obvious by just looking at her? Hearing how others describe her. Then by her own words and actions? No, and that was the problem in this case which Ms Garner does not attach weight-intent. After reading this book I am no clearer on Anu Singh's intent on killing Joe Cinque-Just that she did kill him and in a cruel, compassionless, lab rat kind of way.
However, like Ms Garner, on reading this book, I cannot argue against that Joe Cinque, nor his family were served well by the legal system and nor was justice. The information about Anu Singh provided by Ms Garner and in the public domain does require clarity on the level of Anu Singh's responsibility. For me the universal tragedy in this story (and Helen Garner does pose the question without broadening it's impact) is this; In a group of young, smart and ambitious students-where was their individual or collective moral compass? Why did they not stand up for Joe Cinque even during their attendance at the trial-Rather than treating both trials as if they were being exposed to an unpleasant sideshow that was getting in the way of them getting on with their lives. He was dead wasn't he? Move on! Where was the remorse? Where was their compassion? Their reflection on they got it wrong and have learned to be more morally strong people? It was the sense of the majority of these young people, 'his friends' having learned nothing that made Joe Cinque even more invisible and his very existence as a human being expendable.
For me, Anu Singh appeared in these pages as someone with a very tenuous grip on reality. Dangerous? Undoubtably, as circumstances proved but seemingly without any effective moral guidance other than her own warped view of the world around her. She was not effectively challenged in her narcissistic beliefs either in her peer group or family. No one stood up to her or stared her down. She did not seem to possess a thread of self-reflection or anything which indicated she did know right from wrong. Is that still not the test for diminished responsibility? Was she even effectively tested on this capacity? It appears not from what is written here. Nonetheless, diminished responsibility? Perhaps-but this should not be an excuse or a defence for the actions she took but a legal system would be unlikely to expose this and did not. Morality and ethics as the judge pointed out have little part to play in court. Adversarial argument and rebuttal do. Into this paradigm this book and author fall. Guilty as charged? No, more complex than that. Undoubtably guilty in a lack of morality and responsibility and remorse and no insight that what she did was wrong to Joe Cinque but in that she was not alone. And Joe Cinque, basically a decent man with a life ahead of him, whose one fault was to love her and not see the danger coming. If Helen Garner had included in this book as fleshed out a portrait of Joe Cinque with as much depth as she did for Anu and later Rao, then it may have truly been a consolation; a suitable memorial other than the endlessly used line "And Joe Cinque is dead". We know, but why? From reading this book,that we still do not have a clearer understanding of.
Helen Garner is like Janet Malcolm ("In the Freud Archives" a hatchet deconstruction of Jeffrey Masson). Intelligent, with an engaging writing style. She inserts herself into the text so that by the end of particularly her non fiction you have an idea of her personality, beliefs and character. You either are a fan/friend or not. I am not.
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