Losing Matt Shepard
by Beth Loffreda
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Book Summary Information
Author: Beth LoffredaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-10-15
ISBN: 0231118597
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Book Reviews of Losing Matt Shepard
Book Review: A lot of things found...
Summary: 5 Stars
Like "The Laramie Project", this book is about Laramie, and the larger society of the prairie and mountain West of Noorth America. It is not a biography of Matthew Shepard, nor is it remotely intended to be. That reflects a deliberate decision to respect not only his privacy, but also that of a lot of his friends and relatives who have wanted to keep their memories of Matt to themselves. This can be debated: in the end Romaine patterson and Judy Shepard have thought they do him a better service by trying to tell what he was like as a man, so that he doesn't get lost in various agendas requiring him to be either a plaster saint, or a irresponsible adventurer if not worse).
Either approach will attract its critics. However, as a biographical matter, there is something which must be faced. Matt Shepard was a Westerner of Wyoming, and it was home to him. He wasn't the one out of place in Laramie. Without some understanding of that community and region, you will not understand him.
As a Westerner, although from a very different part of it, I very much appreciated this book. Beth Loffreda is a newcomer, but, unlike many, has spent the time to know and understand the Prairie/Mountain West, without losing a proper objectivity. Its nuances and currents can be easily lost in the presence of stereotyping (something gays would know about), some f which is certainly designed to adavnce agendas of any all varieties. It is easy to idealize; it is easy to denounce. It is much more difficult to describe and understand. She does it very well.
I have seen it written elsewhere that the only two questions which matter are: 1) what happened to Matthew, and 2) what were the motives for his death? I suggest that this book gets us a lot further along towards answers to those questions than some critics might imagine.
If, indeed, it is to be argued that Matthew's fate arose because of some peuliarity of the place where he was killed, then that peculiarity should be assessed. Under examination, it's not an easy question to answer. Simple denunciations of "the usual suspects" doesn't work., and the ones which might matter lie more deeply than that. As far as I have been able to trace it, the answer seems to me to cut either way, It can be argued that there are things about the society which leave young men with no way to express themselves emotionally except in anger, esepcially where other males are concerned. Against this, there is a greater day-to-day tolerance for individuals who are recognized as contributing to the community, whatever unpopular thing they may be or think. That community mya have the habit of overestimating its tolerance (and I think that's a fair criticism of the place), but it has its own reality. Matthew himself, a son of that area, had attained his own position there before going to Switzerland, and showed eveery sign of resuming it when his life was cut short.
As to the motivations of his killers, it has to be said that neither of them posess enough insight or understanding of themselves ever to give us a proper explanation. That doesn't lie within their limited abilities. If we are going to find anythinh more than our own suppositions and yes) prejudices, we'll have to try and find it in their communities.
This book is well worth whatever you need to do to read it.
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