Three generations of journalist Phyllis Karas’s family are marked by two great tragedies – the car crash which killed six members of the family, and the murder committed by the first grandchild born after that accident hardly twenty years later.
This is an interesting mash-up of a book – part family history, part true crime, and sometimes even a scrapbook. Karas dives into the crimes which impacted her family, whether they were those who committed them or the victims, studying how their effects rippled through the extended family.
I don’t think I’ve read a book quite like this before – most memoirs will get into the warts and all of their writers, but Curse of the Blumentals tells the story of the family and the bonds between its members, and how they are affected by several tragic events over the decades. Though Karas clearly is fond of her enormous and fairly close-knit family, she is not afraid to explore how they may have contributed to the events which in turn shaped their own futures. It’s this honesty combined with the truly major crimes which impacted the Blumentals which makes this a compelling read.
I did notice some passages in the second half book got a bit repetitive, though, which really should have been excised by an editor. And while Karas does do her very best to stay objective – and I think does an excellent job of it when it comes to those outsiders who were drawn into the family histories as villains and victims alike – it becomes noticeably harder to do so when it comes to those within the family circle. Of course, Karas does in some part admit this herself, but I did find myself curious about how other members of the family’s comments might differ on the same person or the same incident.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
