The Events of October: Response

Gail Griffin's brave book, "The Events of October" will surely be labeled by many as haunting and chilling. While this work is definitely both things at once, I cannot help but attach the term 'intimate' to it as well. The depth in which Griffin explores both Maggie and Neenef is remarkable, it forms two characters whose identities are expanded upon on the page. She starts her book off with a brief history of the campus, something essential for her book to reach out and over the Kalamazoo audience.

Upon grounding our campus in rich details alive with image, Griffin then gets into the lives of Neenef and Maggie. While Griffin often uses traditional summary techniques to write about a long amount of time, she also uses IM's between the two students, a technique I found to be the most potent and horrific.

The usage of IM's was hugely effective, in my opinion. This accomplished so many things, but the main thing it achieved was its ability to accurately and intimately look into the online discussions Neenef and Maggie were having soon before the incident occurred.  Some may think that this technique was invasive and rash, but I however feel it was necessary. Griffin explored the medium through which students at the time communicated. There was no Facebook yet. These messages show the utter dependency Neenef had on Maggie, and the irrational way he communicated with her. One learns much about both students when reading these messages, I am glad Griffin decided to include them in her book.

A question I have concerning these messages is- did Griffin remove any bits of text from the messages? Also, why did she choose to cut out what Maggie wrote in some of the exchanges? What effect on the conversation did this have?