Review: Rust & Stardust

Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Review: RUST & STARDUST by T. Greenwood

RUST & STARDUST is a brilliant novel, one which not just wrenches the reader's heart, but rips it away. Based on the actual true crime case which inspired Nabokov' s LOLITA, RUST& STARDUST is an incredibly painful read, yet a consciousness-expanding experience. (I think the last time a book affected me this tremendously, it was my reading of Susan Brownmiller's AGAINST OUR WILL, at Thanksgiving 1976. Both gave me the perception of being shifted into a new reality and my metaphorical eyes forced open, to truly "see.")

While I waited to acquire RUST & STARDUST, I did some small research into the factual case. (Tis true, I, once an English major, have not read LOLITA.) The facts of the case by themselves are horrifying and the outcome is tragic. We can read of it, and sympathize. Author T. Greenwood isn't content with surface sympathy: she digs so deeply into her characters, peeling off every single layer down deep to the soul. We don't just observe pragmatically and unemotionally. We, the reader, FEEL. We are present. We suffer.

Another aspect of consciousness I bring away from this traumatic novel is an awareness of the banality of evil. The criminal here is no brilliant intellect such as Leopold and Loeb; no, "Frank" is of low intelligence and no social adeptness. Indeed, he is an outlier, beyond normal society, virtually unaware of consensus society. His mantra--rather, nothing so consciously chosen, but simply his driving force, never his raison d'etre, because that requires conscious process--the drive which ever propels him is "I want, therefore I get." He does not consider others' needs, desires, or rights, for of this he is simply incapable. Like an adult-sized infant, he lives to feed his hungers, and the Outside World simply exists to supply his needs. He operates on instinctual cunning, much like a marine snail will conceal itself at the threat of danger.

I have read recollections of the banality of evil concerning the Holocaust, and in regard to serial killers such as Henry Lee Lucas of Texas. Never before RUST & STARDUST have I achieved such a visceral awareness of its existence and prevalence, and an understanding that just perhaps the banality of evil is the most terrifying danger of all.

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