{"id":2390,"date":"2011-07-12T20:28:45","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T02:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asylumeclectica.com\/grim\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2016-01-03T00:18:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-03T06:18:35","slug":"the-road-out-of-hell-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=2390","title":{"rendered":"The Road Out Of Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you who’ve followed my site over the years may be aware that I have only ever received one (minor) perk from my creation of the site: referral fees from Amazon.Com for books bought through my aStore (The Library Eclectica<\/a>). I used those funds (which came to about $10 a month) to purchase books to stock up the morbid fact coffers. However, thanks to my current state of Illinois and my old state of California both passing internet sales tax laws, I can no longer earn referral funds, so that perk is gone. Consequently, I’ll soon be redesigning The Library Eclectica to change it from an aStore format back to a page on my site, although I’ll probably still link the books to Amazon.Com because A) I like it and B) they have good information and reviews of the books. I just wanted everyone to be aware in case you’ve been reluctant to purchase anything through the links because you didn’t want to contribute to my coffers, that my coffers are empty now.<\/p>\n

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to tell you about an exceptional book I just read!<\/p>\n

Wretched Recommendations!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders<\/strong>
\nby Anthony Flacco
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"
\n(Available on Kindle too!)<\/p>\n

An absolutely compelling account of the unbearable plight of Sanford Clark \u2013 who, at the age of 13, was given by his callous mother to his Uncle Stewart (the infamous \u201cape boy\u201d Gordon Stewart Northcott) to help him tend a chicken farm he was starting in Southern California. After being smuggled out of his Canadian homeland to the remote Wineville, California farm, Sanford learns the horrifying truth: that his sophisticated, pianist Uncle Stewart is a sadistic rapist and murderer of young boys who started up the farm to provide the isolation he needed to carry on his activities. Sanford is raped and beaten repeatedly by his uncle over the course of the two years he spends on the farm, and is forced to bury the bodies of his uncle\u2019s young victims. At one point, he is even forced to take part in one of the murders by his uncle and his grandmother (Stewart\u2019s mother, who doted over her perfect boy to the point where she covered up his crimes for him). Obviously, the weight of all this activity is forever seared on Sanford\u2019s mind and he considers himself evil and thinks that he deserves to be punished and eventually killed by Stewart. He thinks of trying to escape \u2026 but this was the 1920\u2019s. He was an illegal alien in the country. Even if he wasn\u2019t jailed for that, if he said that Stewart beat him, the response would be, \u201cYou probably deserved it\u201d and he\u2019d be taken back and killed for his disobedience. And he couldn\u2019t possibly admit to the rapes! Talk about a taboo subject. And the murders\u2026 would they believe him? Could he risk them not believing him? So he stayed there, used and abused, and resigned to his eventual demise.<\/p>\n

But, unlike 30 or more other children, Sanford didn\u2019t die \u2013 he was rescued by his older sister, who scrimped and saved to pay for a ticket down to the ranch to check up on him after becoming suspicious that his letters were being ghostwritten by Northcott. She puts an end to the carnage and Sanford is a key witness against Northcott in the trial. Afterwards, against the odds, Sanford goes on to become a wonderful husband and father and lives a long, fulfilling life of charity and goodness, despite the paralyzing bouts of depression and guilt that hit him periodically.<\/p>\n

This was one of those books that I couldn\u2019t put down \u2013 and if I\u2019d had the time I would have read it in one sitting. The author does a brilliant job of putting us in Sanford\u2019s position \u2013 a boy whose mother has betrayed him, whose father refuses to stand up for him, whose grandparents treat him like a pariah, and who is savagely abused by his \u201ccaretaker\u201d uncle. It is easy to condemn him for not \u201crebelling\u201d against his uncle and saving the lives of other boys, but how resilient would any of us be in the same situation \u2013 when not a single soul on earth (except your sister who lives a thousand miles away) has ever supported you or been worthy of your trust? Ultimately, the book is a story of survival against steep odds and the ultimate victory of one small human being against a darkness that tried desperately to destroy his heart. Highly recommended. 5\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you who’ve followed my site over the years may be aware that I have only ever received one (minor) perk from my creation of the site: referral fees from Amazon.Com for books bought through my aStore (The Library Eclectica). I used those funds (which came to about $10 a month) to purchase books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6227,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/6227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}