Rene Denfeld: Writing the Truth About Criminals
How do we understand the terrible harm someone can commit, and still see them as a person?
In The Enchanted, several of the main characters are men who committed horrific crimes. They wait on Death Row, for execution.
I’ve been asked how I created characters of such horror and yet humanity. How do we understand the terrible harm someone can commit, and still see them as a person?
Too often, authors writing about violence want to make the criminal The Other. The typical rapist or murderer in literature is depicted as a monster, devoid of any humanity: he is without a soul.
It is a comforting portrayal, because it tells us he cannot be one of us. He cannot be our coach, our pastor, or our brother. We can rest easy, knowing we did not create him: our culture and our society are not to blame. He is a bad seed that fell from a faraway tree. Nothing to worry about, people: Move along.
But there are problems with this approach. By “othering” the criminal we “other” the victim as well. She becomes a bit player in a false story, a device that exists to be hurt: the unfortunate weed that sprang from the bad seed. At best she evokes pity. At worst she is fodder for voyeuristic entertainment, her blood-splattered body the titillation in many a genre novel.
We also induce lethargy. If criminals are unrepentant monsters, incapable of change, then there is no way to prevent them.
But what happens if we try to understand the criminal? What happens if we open our hearts to his truths? We can see the poison. We can see the rage. Such terrible rage. Where does that rage come from?
Those are the questions we begin to ask.
And by asking those questions, we delve into complex and important realities about crime. We grapple with poverty, abuse, and neglect. We ask ourselves about the impact of domestic violence and how a tenderhearted boy becomes a violent man. We wonder why some people survive horrible childhoods and others succumb to hate. We begin to think about racism and oppression. We see the awful cycles of revenge and war in people and nations in a new light. We ponder forgiveness and consider redemption.
Violence stops being a narrative abstract, committed by a fictional boogeyman. It is real. Real people hurt each other.
Real people get hurt.
When we tell the truth of a criminal, we tell the truth of a crime. And when we tell the truth of a crime we begin to understand why it happens, and what can be done to stop it.
That is when we begin to find hope.
This essay was originally posted on readherlikeanopenbook.com shortly after the publication of Rene Denfeld’s debut novel, The Enchanted. I am sharing it again to coincide with the publication of her latest novel, Sleeping Giants.
Rene Denfeld is the author of The Enchanted (2014), The Child Finder (2017), and The Butterfly Girl (2019). Her new novel, Sleeping Giants (Harper), was published on March 26. You can read my reviews of The Enchanted here and The Child Finder here.
Rene’s novels are influenced by her work as a licensed death row investigator. She is the past Chief Investigator for a public defenders and has worked hundreds of cases, including exonerations and helping rape trafficking victims. The survivor of a difficult background, Rene regularly speaks on social justice issues, as well as writing and overcoming trauma.
In 2017 The New York Times named Rene a hero of the year and she was awarded the Break The Silence Award in Washington, DC. Her novels have received many prestigious literary awards, including a French Prix, an ALA Medal for Excellence in Fiction, a Carnegie Listing, a listing for the International Dublin Literary Award, and she was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is the happy parent of kids from foster care.