Reading The Events of October as a Kalamazoo College student is a unique experience because I can imagine everything taking place on a small campus, and how different a murder suicide affects a small campus like ours. Knowing how intimate the setting is here--how people interact, and how information is spread, how close relationships are formed--changed the way I read this book. There was something very eery about Gail's description of Neneef standing on a chair glaring at Nick at the Homecoming dance, for the obvious reason that it is creepy, but also, those dances are so intimate that it's the kind of action that does not go unnoticed. On a campus where your business isn't only your business, I wonder just how many people knew Maggie and Neneef's situation, and maybe foresaw serious consequences.
One question I would like to ask Gail has to do with the emotional experience of writing this book. It's hard to feel the same sympathy for Neneef as I do for Maggie, especially when Gail includes chat histories that portray Neneef as a violent, needy, hyper-aggressive person who was never satisfied with Maggie's constant reassurances that she loved him. Gail really paints two drastically different portraits of them; Maggie, a very confident, intelligent, mature woman--always growing throughout the book--and Neneef, this insecure boy who blamed everybody else including Maggie for his personal struggles. I wonder how her emotions and personal feelings about these events affected her writing and the process.
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