THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 7, 1995 TAG: 9503070458
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
``DEAD OPPOSITE: The Lives and Loss of Two American Boys'' (Henry Holt, $22.50) chronicles two families - before and after the moment when a single bullet burst from a .22-caliber handgun and seared its way into the heart of Christian Prince.
The book is the latest work by Geoffrey Douglas, a former newspaper publisher, editor, columnist and reporter, as social historian. His first was ``Class: The Wreckage of an American Family,'' published in 1992.
Douglas never knew Christian Prince, the 19-year-old Yale University student gunned down after leaving a party Feb. 17, 1991, but he felt compelled to find answers when he read about Christian's death in the New York Times nearly a year after it happened. Douglas does not try to play objective journalist. Instead he writes as a father, himself a child of privilege. He does not pretend otherwise.
The author takes us into the living rooms of victim and accused killer. He shows us the parallels - the hopes of parents for their children, the dreams of those children. Then he slaps us with the contrasts. It is Douglas' ability to convince people to share their stories and their pain that gives his book its power. Through his lens, we see stories that - in some form - play out in living rooms, courtrooms, jail cells across the country, starring families no better equipped.
We meet Sally Prince, Christian's mother, who tells us: ``My faith in humanity, in human goodness - that's gone forever, I'm afraid. I can't feel the same about people anymore.''
Anyone who has spent time with families and friends of murder victims has heard it - this simple, haunting language that chills the soul - and has known the toll of violent death on society.
Christian Prince was blond, 6 feet 2 inches tall and an all-American athlete. He was a fourth generation Yale student destined for success.
James Duncan Fleming was poor, black and an admitted gang member. He saw his first killing at age 10, had sex before he was 12 and has been permanently injured by a bullet that pierced both his legs. He was 16 when he was charged in Christian's murder.
The evidence against Duncan was slim - enough for a jury to convict him of conspiracy but not murder. A key witness told two different stories - one that put Duncan at the scene, and the other - recounted 13 months later - that removed any good reason to hold him responsible.
Here, Douglas has latched on to another too-often truth about juveniles in court: ``These are kids for whom truth, as a value, is as weightless as air on the moon. Like love, hope, goodness, friendship, the future: an abstraction, without meaning or place in their world. They could not name a soul, not one, who has ever earned a nickel, escaped the streets, or bought an extra hour of life because of truth. Or lived poorer or died sooner because of its lack.''
Douglas has asked all the right questions. He has mined detail and is not afraid to let the people he interviews talk. For that reason, we find racism in his pages. The racist attitudes of a nation - the chasm between black and white - come screaming back at us.
Yet he leaves us with a glimpse of what needs to change through the words of public defender Susan Storey: ``People's consciousness has to be raised,'' she says. ``They have to start listening, start paying attention for a change. Human life has to matter more. Kids have to matter more. People have to learn again to care.''
Douglas' book is a beacon in the bleakness of violent juvenile crime. The voices and warnings don't evaporate when the last page is turned. by CNB