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GOING BY THE BOOK |
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A family tragedy becomes
a memorable new book
of TheColumnists.com
The news was surprising.
The United States will restore diplomatic relations with the
government of Libya, a country controlled by the autocratic leader,
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
This is the same terrorist leader who controlled or condoned
the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December of 1988 over Lockerbie,
Scotland. The violent act took the lives of 270 people, including
David Dornstein, 25, son of an old Philadelphia pal of mine,
Dr. Perry Dornstein.
There were 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 when it crashed into
the small Scottish village. The other victims were locals on
the ground.
“The night my brother died, I slept fine, back in my old
bed in my old room in the old house where I grew up,” wrote
David’s brother, Ken Dornstein, then 19 and on Christmas
vacation from his studies at Brown University in his brilliant
and emotional book on the tragedy and his loss before learning
of the event. It took some 18 years to get “The Boy Who
Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story” (Random House, $23.95)
into print.
Only a reading of the book and the torturous experience of Ken
Dornstein and all his family can explain the long trail from
horrendous event to documented pages.
The government of Libya, the killers of these innocent victims,
is now among the league of normal nations, no longer considered
a terrorist nation, no longer held accountable for the 1988 violence,
no longer shunned from oil deals with the West.
“This decision is not undertaken because Libya has oil,”
fibbed David Welch, assistant secretary of state for the Middle
East. “This decision is undertaken because they’ve
addressed our national security concerns.”
Some $2 billion has been paid to families of the victims with
another $700 million due now that Libya has been allowed to rejoin
the international commerce community.
Dornstein’s book is not about the international ramifications.
It is about brotherly love and loss, the trauma of the event
and the painful march forward ever since that night of December
21, 1988.
Perry Dornstein is a retired Philadelphia physician out of Brooklyn.
He and his first wife were the parents of three children, a daughter,
Susan, and the two boys, David and Ken. After his divorce while
the children were young, he married his wife, Dorothy, who spent
a good part of her life raising the children.
David attended Brown University and struggled with his decided
career as a writer. At 25 he was moving in the direction of success
when the explosion over Scotland took his life and the family
dreams for him.
Ken Dornstein’s brutally honest book explains the emotional
tangles his older brother underwent before the loss of his life.
There is no way of knowing the future accomplishments of the
charismatic David.
Through an incredible reporting mission that spread from their
Philadelphia home to Lockerbie and Israel, where David had lived
prior to his return home on the ill-fated flight, Ken Dornstein
has captured his brother’s life and times in minute detail.
He is unafraid in this work of portraying their relationship,
their character, their dreams and their setbacks as honestly
as could be imagined in this significant study.
Ken quotes from his brother’s letters home as he searched
his soul for the correct avenues of life to follow.
“Do you know what I want to do with the rest of my life,
Dad? Exactly what am I doing this instant: I want to type what
I think. Do you know that I actually believe that I can earn
money doing that? I will satisfy the public and pay the bills
while I toil away on the great big book I’m always rattling
swords about,” David Dornstein wrote while still in college.
What makes Ken Dornstein’s book remarkable is the incredible
detailed descriptions of the turmoil his brother experienced
as he searched out his life path. Dornstein was able to explore
the complex family relationship in a way few authors have been
able to nail down.
Few of us can ever truly deal with the inter-action of sibling
relationship and fewer still can honestly detail the extreme
pressures of sibling loss, especially at the early age of growth
and discovery.
Ken Dornstein, in some wondrous way, also discovers his own values
and his own ideals as he searches out the life of his lost brother.
There is an amazing human element to this book found in very
few sibling studies.
Ken Dornstein fell in love and married a woman who was once a
major part of the older brother’s life. The complications
that throws upon the loss of a brother, the pain of his absence
and the parade over the egg shells of David’s life as he
recreates it in this book make for a fantastic tale.
Ken Dornstein ends his book with a letter to his long gone brother:
“I’ve stopped looking for you in bus stations and restaurants.
I’ve stopped rummaging through your old room and calling
your old friends,” he writes.
He writes of his own life now with David’s ex-girl friend
as his wife and the two children they now share.
“Still your brother,” writes Ken, as he ends this remarkable
tale.
©2006 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The book cover illustration is courtesy of Random
House. This column first posted May 22, 2006.
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