Rachael Hanel

Not the Camilla We Knew by Rachael Hanel tries to look beyond and below the headlines to understand how and why Camilla Hall ended up getting killed as a revolutionary.

Even with the years of research Hanel put into this project I'm not sure how possible it is to really know why someone makes life-changing decisions. I do think that this book offers a lot of valid suggestions and probably gets as close as is possible. I did not read this as an attempt to make me feel one way or another about Camilla but rather an attempt to help the reader understand just how much the things we experience in life can influence us. The same home, the same parents can generate completely different worldviews in two children, so even with conjecture about how her childhood affected her adult choices is open to debate.

I tend to agree with most of the larger points Hanel makes, namely because I think our decisions are influenced by what came before, so knowing the end and working backwards with that in mind can shed light on things that, looked at without the benefit of hindsight, might be dismissed or overlooked as just part of growing up with some good and some bad experiences.

While I would recommend this to readers with an interest in the psychology of radicalization as well as recent history, I think some readers who remember these events might be a little quick to claim that this is an attempt specifically to paint Camilla in a good light. If you bracket that predisposition I think you'll discover that this is more about giving us some insight into what might make anyone, regardless of background, choose radical action.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)

Rachael Hanel tells the story of growing up in a small town in Minnesota. Her father was a caretaker at the cemeteries, as well as a digger of graves.

The emphasis on cemeteries and graves in the book make their way onto the page of her blog, as well. Very educational and even entertaining to look directly at headstones and death, without flinching. While Hanel’s family story and history is very middle America (and I don’t mean that dismissively–it’s interesting for its specificity), the style she wrote the memoir in deviates from the norm. It is overwhemingly memoir-ish throughout, but also threads through journalistic techniques and in the last portion of the book even becomes more like a lyric essay–lyrical and reflective.

As a child, Hanel was interested in violent deaths, even reading Helter Skelter, the story of the Manson murders, at age eleven. This fascination is not surprising given the emphasis in the family on death. Adult reflection tells us she has learned this:

Reading became a protection; the words were a blanket I wrapped tightly around me. The stories helped me prepare for the inevitable. I surrounded myself with these words, reminders that bad things happen to good people. I read somewhere that we are drawn to stories of death and disease to convince ourselves that we would act differently. That somehow, by learning of someone else’s story we can protect ourselves.… (meer)