Richard Propes's Reviews > Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber

There are those experiences in life that when we look back have somehow come to define our life journey. For "Madman in the Woods" author Jamie Gehring, one of those experiences is the subject of her work here as "Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber" explores a childhood spent living in the deep woods of Montana with Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, as her family's closest neighbor.

"Madman in the Woods" vividly captures the uniqueness of this experience, simultaneously humanizing Kaczynski while also attempting to reconcile this man who would display occasional kindnesses, especially toward her, with the man who would also become known as the longest active domestic terrorist in U.S. history who would eventually be known as responsible for mailing explosives to strangers that would kill three and wound 23 others before his 1996 capture and subsequent eight lifetime prison sentence that is being served at Colorado's notorious Supermax.

One can practically feel the psychological wheels turning for Gehring in "Madman in the Woods," a book that spends nearly as much time processing Gehring's own unique childhood as it does Kaczynski's connection to it.

While "Madman in the Woods" does, at least on some level, humanize Kaczynski it does not, it must be acknowledged, romanticize or excuse him.

"Madman in the Woods" plays out like a psychological drama, a young woman forced to look at the distorted innocence of youth when it's realized that the same odd hermit who brought her painted rocks as a gift in childhood was also far more menacing than initially realized to locals who conflicted with his worldviews and who was also, quite simply, a killer who actively desired to kill far more than he was able to kill with his destructive yet often crude bombs.

The book paints a portrait of a young man whose genius was obvious early on, though his inconsistent childhood left him ill-prepared emotionally and developmentally to deal with his childhood, his parents, his genius, and his remarkable promise. Entering Harvard at age 16, Kaczynski was thrust into a world for which he had almost no coping skills and it became a world that altered a psyche that was already a bit distorted. From failed attempts at relationships to work experiences that would implode when those around him failed to live up to his standard, it seems almost inevitable that Kaczynski was headed toward a different sort of life but few could imagine it would include a path of destruction.

"Madman in the Woods" finds Gehring trying to reconcile this chasm of different life experiences, an effort both internally and externally realized. The book finds Gehring's research, admittedly a term I find somewhat loosely utilized here, to include established correspondence with those who investigated the Unabomber, those who were impacted, Kaczynski's former friends and family and, yes, finally Kaczynski himself as he would even respond to her inquiries.

"Madman in the Woods" is an engaging read, a book both intelligently realized and emotionally resonant with a deep core of heart amidst all of its fact-finding. As "Madman in the Woods" begins to wind down it becomes, at least for me, a little too procedural in nature as I found myself most enthralled by Gehring's vivid descriptions of her Montana life with an eccentric oddball nearby who was never quite friendly but was often sociable enough for his eccentricities to be dismissed and for him to be welcomed into the Gehring family home.

How do you reconcile it when everything you thought you understood about your childhood turns out to be a combination of rose-colored glasses and based upon unrealized truths? This question is at the heart of "Madman in the Woods" and Gehring explores her own answers with intelligence, insight, honesty, and heart in a book that doesn't necessarily reveal a lot of new information about Kaczynski but adds layers of depth to its meaning.

"Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber" will be released in April 2022 by Diversion Books.