THE BURNING BED: The True Story of a Wife Who Killed

by Faith McNulty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 1980

A grim, detailed case history--delivered in flat, clichÉd prose and short on psychological or sociological insights. McNulty begins with ""The Crime""--the 1977 arson murder, in a small Michigan town, of Mickey Hughes by wife Francine, mother of four--and then flashes back to reconstruct Francine's entire life. With generous quotes from Francine herself, we get her childhood: a drunk (though rarely violent) father; the stigma of poverty; guilt over a younger brother's serious accident (perhaps this ""made her overly sensitive to the suffering of others""). And then, at 15, the appearance of Mickey, who talked impulsive Francine into sex and marriage, then quickly showed his real, ugly self: alcoholic, mother-dependent, unable to keep a job, jealous, domineering, cruel, and frequently, ferociously violent. But with three children soon born, ""it never occurred to her to leave him"": ""I kept hoping that if I stuck it out Mickey might change. . . "" And though Francine did get a divorce and try to live apart from him, Mickey would follow with threats and pleas; he even wrecked his car and himself in a near-fatal crash, drawing Francine back via sympathy. The abuse escalated; so did the threats; the police and the courts didn't seem to care when Francine begged for help. And when Mickey ripped up her secretarial-school books and beat her till she swore she'd quit school, something snapped: ""a voice urged me on. It whispered 'Do it! Do it! Do it!"" So, while Mickey slept, she set fire to the bedroom, piled the kids in the car, and drove . . . straight to the police station. As it happened, Francine was acquitted on a temporary insanity plea (rather than the much riskier self-defense plea urged by feminists), so the court never had to address the larger or subtler issues, e.g.: Did Francine really have no other alternative--and, if so, how much was society, or her own personality (and female conditioning) responsible? McNulty, too, ducks the hard questions; worse, she often takes Francine at such blurry face value that readers won't even feel able to draw their own conclusions. And she ends limply, by shifting the focus altogether with a three-page quote from a clinical psychological who was ""asked to comment"" on Mickey's psychopathology. True, the story itself is certainly depressing, even horrible at times. But, except for some powerful moments in the trial transcript, it's monotonic, often blandly sentimental; and those seeking a fiercely feminist illumination of battered wives' violent last resort will surely prefer Ann Jones' uncompromising Women Who Kill (p. 1051).

Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION