  Good Read
I thought the book was easy to read. I'm glad the author stuck to the story. I could not put it down. It is so easy for people to say "Why didn't they just walk out?" You never know how you would react unless you are in such a situation.
Padded but compelling true crime story
Raffi Kodikian and David Coughlin met during their college years, in the mid-1990's, and bonded over air guitar and Cheers, movies, mutual friends, and shared confidences. Some five years later they decided to take a road trip west together--David was moving from Massachusetts to California--one leg of which brought them to New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park. They meant to camp out in the park for one night and see the caves before taking off again. But Carlsbad was as far as they got. Raffi and David hiked into Rattlesnake Canyon, a "remote, mostly unheard-of rift in the Chihuahuan Desert," and pitched a tent, but in the morning they were unable to find the trail they'd followed in. Days later they still hadn't found their way out, and they'd long since run out of water. When rescuers arrived on day four--on August 8, 1999--Raffi was still alive, if dehydrated, and he admitted to having stabbed David to death just that morning by way of ending his friend's suffering.
Jason Kersten tells the story surrounding Raffi's fatal stabbing of David in his compelling book Journal of the Dead. Kersten covers the history of his subjects' friendship, the particulars of their trip cross country and of their fateful stay in Carlsbad, and the ensuing arrest and prosecution of Raffi. Along the way Kersten discusses myriad related topics--the affects of dehydration on the body, the near absence of precedent for mercy killings in survival situations, the legal defenses considered and rejected by Kodikian's counsel.
Kodikian's case is inherently fascinating because of its ambiguity: Raffi was neither obviously innocent nor clearly guilty of having acted from malice aforethought. Kersten--who refuses to state his own opinion on Kodikian's guilt or innocence--does a wonderful job of explaining the arguments from both sides of the courtroom, addressing those issues which tend to exonerate Kodikian and unpacking those parts of his story that don't quite add up. (One troubling aspect of Kodikian's case, for example, is that he was released from the hospital--he walked out of the hospital himself--after only one hour of treatment, hardly what one would expect for someone who was allegedly so severely dehydrated that he had contemplated suicide.) Because Kodikian refused to be interviewed for the book, Kersten reconstructs what happened to the friends in the desert from other sources, including courtroom testimony and physical evidence. Kersten's account left this reader, at least, unsure of what to make of Kodikian, and appreciative of the legal system's apparent wisdom in dealing with his case.
Kersten is a good writer. His book is punctuated by well-turned phrases that reward rereading: "So that morning he [Coughlin] stood in a driveway outside an apartment building in the town of Milford, forcing himself to part with the woman who name was all poetry: Sonnet Frost." Perhaps by way of padding the story, which grew out of a 2000 Maxim magazine article, Kersten includes information not strictly pertinent to the case: a history of the town of Carlsbad, the story of an ill-fated Confederate campaign across the Rio Grande, a horrific tale of dehydration and death in the Sahara. These make for interesting enough reading. But sometimes Kersten's book is more drawn out than it needs to be. His account of the early stages of the friends' road trip is unnecessarily long, for example, and the 50-odd page account of Raffi's sentencing hearing at the end of the book likewise might have been abbreviated. But this complaint is relatively minor. Kersten succeeds in elucidating for readers the fascinating case of Kodikian's mercy killing--or murder--in a manner that, happily, leaves the mystery of the story unresolved. It's a very good true crime story.
Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)
awesome!!!
can't beat it. i loved how it got into detail about the killing and Raffi's relationship with Dave. the only thing i didn't like was how the story would jump back and forth between the scene in Rattle snake canyon to the court scene (in part one)
The Butterfly Effect...and the Weight of Water
This book was terrific! It was well written, fair, objective and compassionate in its rendering of an event that the author could easily have sensationalized for its potentially gruesome details. While more copies would likely have been sold had he chosen this tack, he instead told the story with sensitivity and integrity. At the same time he was able to tell it with suspense and intrigue, as he wove the details and perspectives of those involved to a conclusion that, though foretold at the beginning, lead through a court room drama with twists and turns that left me turning the pages and second guessing myself all the way. If you are someone who enjoys the desert, with all of its tales and wonders, this is a book for you. You'll think twice the next time you `weigh' the thought of one gallon of water per day against the feel of it on your back in your pack.
Amazing true-life story; a complete page-turner
This was originally a magazine piece, and then Kersten expanded it into a book. I was hooked from the book's description, and this turned out to be such a page-turner that I finished it in just two days. The story is captivating: did a man perform a mercy killing on his best friend out in the desert, as he died from dehydration, or did he murder him in his sleep?
The author correctly identified that this situation was not about guilt or innocencem but about the sentencing part of the trail. It's a great moral dillema: would you be able to watch your friend suffer to death? At the same time, though, the law does not make allowances for mercy killing. Watching the prosecution and sentencing of this crime was fascinating.
I fault the park for this tragedy, too, and I'm surprised that didn't come out in the civil litigation. The dead man's parents donated money to improve the park, though, so perhaps they are the type to do good without litigation. The park charged too much for water, didn't provide containers for drinking water, and the ranger seemed to have never heard of the idea of clueless East Coasters stumbling around on a vision quest without the proper precautions, so he trusted everyone to take care of themselves entirely too much.
Kersten has painted a grippping narrative that will make you think about the fine line between right and wrong, and how society should mete out punishment. I hope he turns out more non-fiction soon.
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