Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation

Robert and Mary Rowe’s second child, Christopher, was born with severe neurological and visual impairments. For many years, the Rowes’ courageous response to adversity set an example for other parents of children with birth defects. Then the pressures on Bob Rowe—personal and professional—took their toll, and he fell into depression and, ultimately, delusion. And one day he took a baseball bat and killed his wife and three children. Julie Salamon deftly avoids sensationalism as she tells the Rowes’ tragic story with intelligence, sympathy, and insight. Like all great literary journalism, Facing the Wind asks us to join its issues and examine our own lives and problems in the new, bright light that good writing always sheds.