The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City

'This remarkable book is built of diligent reporting and sensitive reckoning; its questions haunted me long after I finished reading it' Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

On 11 March, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas - one of America's poorest cities - John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already rundown, and in their aftermath a consensus developed in the community that it should be destroyed.

In 2008, journalist Laura Tillman covered the story. Her investigation sprawled into a six-year inquiry into the larger significance of such acts, ones so difficult to imagine or explain that their perpetrators are often dismissed as monsters alien to humanity.

In The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts, Tillman speaks to lawyers, relatives, neighbours, and even one of the murderers: John Allen Rubio himself. The result is a brilliant exploration of some of our age's most important social issues, from poverty to mental illness to the death penalty, and a profound meditation on the truly human forces that drive them.

Laura Tillman is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and Pacific Standard, among other publications. Originally from Maplewood, New Jersey, she began her career at The Brownsville Herald in South Texas. She holds a BA in International Studies from Vassar College and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College.

About Laura Tillman