What if he were your brother?

Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family by David Kaczynski (Duke University Press, $19.95).

David Kaczynski’s memoir of his brother, Ted, who came to be known to most of us as the Unabomber, is moving and informative. Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family shows us a man who we came to think of as a “mad bomber” as a boy; admired by his little brother, scarily intelligent, and not quite right.

Kaczynski includes plenty of information that most of us didn’t know, like his brother Ted’s participation in a three-year psychological project designed to measure reactions to humiliation. This sort of insight would certainly seem to have mitigating weight, had it been brought up in the penalty phase of the elder Kaczynski brother’s trial.

But David Kaczynski isn’t making excuses; he’s being honest about the part mental illness played in his older brother’s crimes, and making a philosophical and ethical argument that killing one person doesn’t bring any others back to life.

We already knew that the younger Kaczynski was a compassionate and ethical man–he turned in his brother, but only after he thought that the death penalty was off the table. This memoir reinforces what it took for him to lead authorities to Ted, and offers ways for the rest of us to move forward with empathy.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com ( )

Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family by David Kaczynski is an interesting read for the most part but could have done without the last quarter of the book which was only loosely related at best.

As with any biographical work written by a family member a reader has to read with an eye toward hidden or hinted at situations. David does an admirable job of trying to be as open and honest as possible but he is still human and there are as many questions raised about the family life of the Unabomber as there were answers. Even with that caveat there is still a lot to be learned from this slender volume. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that something like this can happen in any family in any neighborhood. As such, we would do well to try hard to understand and care for our family and friends. Though it can't prevent something of this sort it might help someone like Ted Kaczinski to never reach the point where violence seems to be the answer.

I think this would appeal to those who like to read about infamous people and speculate on how and why they became who they did. There isn't really a lot beyond that to recommend the book. It was an easy read and worked best as a form of therapeutic release for David which makes publishing and reading it well worth it.

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

Over the course of 17 years (1978-1995), a domestic terrorist code-named "The Unabomber" targeted corporate executives and academics by sending them homemade letter-bombs that would detonate upon opening. Twenty-three people were injured, and three were killed. The FBI's investigation was going nowhere until a social worker named David Kaczynski provided a tip that the Unabomber could possibly be his estranged older brother Ted, a former college mathematics professor who had retreated from the world to live in a remote Montana cabin. Ted had been estranged from his family for years prior to his unmasking as the Unabomber, and when he found out that David had tipped off the FBI as to his identity, he swore that he would never forgive his brother's betrayal.

As of this writing, Ted is serving eight life sentences without the possibility of parole at the Supermax prison in Colorado. Their parents are deceased, and the two brothers remain estranged to this day.

Every Last Tie is a family story. David Kaczynski explains that his parents were loving, caring people who should not be blamed for their older son's misanthropy. Ted's decision to sever "every last tie" with his family broke his parents' hearts. David also writes that it really was his wife, Linda, who figured out that Ted could be the Unabomber. As devout Buddhists, David and Linda felt that they had to tip off the FBI, not only to stop the violence, but also to prevent Ted from accumulating even more bad karma than he already had.

This short book does not provide the complete story of the Unabomber and will make sense only to readers who are already familiar with the life and crimes of Ted Kaczynski. Still, for those interested in the impact of mental illness on families, this book is well worth reading.

Please note that I received an electronic copy of this book to review from NetGalley, but I was not financially compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations while reading this book. ( )