53 pages • 1 hour read
Cylin BusbyThe Year We Disappeared
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Psychological Effects of Fear
Tyrants and bullies hold on to power by keeping their victims afraid, and John’s shooting sends the Busby family spiraling into a year-long vortex of almost constant fear. Initially, the main concern is for John’s recovery, but when his survival is imminent, that concern shifts to fear for both him and his family as John wonders if Meyer will make a second attempt on his life. What makes the fear more visceral is that Meyer is no idle threat; he follows through. He has left a path of death and intimidation in his wake; John knows it, and the entire Falmouth Police Department knows it. To make matters worse, no one seems to know exactly how far Meyer’s reach extends, or how many cops and politicians are under his thumb. This awareness leads John down a rabbit hole of paranoia. When he doesn’t recognize one of the officers assigned to his security detail, he immediately imagines the worst. He suspects any fellow officer he doesn’t personally trust of conspiring with Meyer. Even in the isolated woods of Maine, when a stranger wanders past, his response is to pull out a weapon. The fear and uncertainty lead to a host of unsubstantiated theories, and the fear and anger feed on themselves in a vicious cycle.
Round-the-clock protection is the only solution, but it comes at a price. For John, his injuries render him powerless, a profound blow to his ego and identity. John is the quintessential “alpha male”: a strong, unafraid protector of his family. When that identity is taken away from him (he becomes physically weak, he can barely feed himself, he becomes dependent on others), his response is rage. While John rarely confesses to feeling fear for his own safety, he certainly feels it for his wife and children, and he will do anything—including assassinating Meyer—to keep them safe. The fear and helplessness erode his sense of self-worth until all that is left is a husk of anger.
For Cylin, the fear initially manifests itself as confusion. Even when Kellie hides them in the closet that first night after the shooting, the reality of their dilemma hasn’t set in yet. Eric thinks he can take down an armed adult by hitting him with a rock. For Cylin, reality sets in when it begins to affect her personally—when she realizes that the embarrassment of a police escort isn’t going away, or when her friends slowly and inexplicably drift away. For a preteen on the cusp of peer engagement, the fear of her situation morphs into resentment. She resents the cops who protect her and her friends who desert her. In fact, she resents anything that interferes with her old life. Cylin’s denial is understandable, though. It is unthinkable to expect a nine-year-old to fathom the depravities of human behavior, especially when it’s directed against a loved one.
The Fine Line Between Law and Lawlessness
It’s comforting to imagine a world of good guys and bad guys, a world of stark divisions with few shades of gray or ambiguous motivations. That, however, is not the real world, and the line between good and evil is often blurred. The Year We Disappeared paints a picture of a small-town police department infiltrated by dirty cops and corrupt leadership. Yet the blurring of the line between cop and criminal is no aberration; it is well documented, with psychologically sound causes. Some sociologists have even noted similar personality traits between police officers and the criminals they pursue. John Busby, for example, recounts his youth as one of gang affiliation and violence. He also describes incidents (on his part) of police brutality, incidents that he regrets but that he shrugs off in a single sentence. That youthful defiance, as an adult, however, gives him the courage to stand up to Meyer. It is, therefore, worth considering the possible commonalities between the two sides of the cop/criminal divide and what ramifications those commonalities have on the fairness and efficacy of law enforcement.
A composite image of a typical cop has emerged through years of study and even pop culture exposure: “If we can believe everything we read in magazines, journals, and sociology books, the typical policeman is cynical, suspicious, conservative, and thoroughly bigoted” (Balch, Robert W. “The Police Personality: Fact or Fiction.” The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science. Vol. 63, No. 1. 1972). This makes sense to some degree. Cops are exposed to antisocial behavior every day; their world is often filled with flagrant disregard for others to the point that it might seem this behavior defines the world. Cynicism is a logical result, and where cynicism takes hold, corruption might not be far behind. After all, if the world is a place of broken rules and chaos, a little corruption might not make a difference in the grand scheme. John, however, is an honest cop who resists the jaded attitude of some of his peers, and therein might be the difference. John’s worldview is a rigid one—all laws apply to all people equally—and it serves him well, keeping him on the ethical side of the divide. Perhaps the ability to defy the cynicism and see the law as a force for public good (as opposed to a vehicle for self-enrichment) is what separates the good cops from the bad.
The Human Need for Justice
Human beings have a deeply rooted desire for fairness. That belief is at the very heart of the American Dream: work hard, play by the rules, and you will be rewarded. Despite mounting evidence that this credo is overly reductive, many Americans continue to believe it in all its untarnished simplicity. This belief is also the foundation of any criminal justice system. If someone breaks a law, they must be punished. Degrees of punishment vary, but some version of this belief guides most governmental approaches around the world. After John is shot, he clings to the hope that the guilty party will be found and punished. Without that hope, the universe is simply too random and uncaring, a place where chaos reigns and the strong prey on the weak. Without the notion of justice, the human species is no better than any other predator on the planet. As it becomes apparent that justice will not be served on Raymond Meyer, John grows increasingly angry, even plotting to take justice into his own hands. If the system will not provide justice, he will do it himself even though he could end up in prison.
The roots of this need might be Biblical (An eye for an eye) or they might be hardwired into our brains, but whatever its antecedents, the need for fairness, the need to feel the scales of the universe are balanced, is undeniable. The primary reason John finds it so difficult to get past his anger is that, if he does, Meyer wins and the scales of justice are out of balance. When he finally lets go of his revenge fantasy and prioritizes his family’s safety (and his own mental health) over his need for retribution, the hate that he now realizes is destroying him slowly fades, replaced by calm acceptance: “In reality, I was just a man who got somebody mad—mad enough to want to kill him—and survived it. Maybe it should end there” (317).
The Strength and Support of Community
Falmouth is a small community, and, like many small communities, people know each other more intimately than in larger cities. After John is shot, the town comes together to help his family: they donate food; they hold a bake sale; they start a relocation fund after the expense of his medical care and protection becomes too burdensome. On a more micro scale, the community of police closes ranks behind their injured colleague, watching over his house and family, visiting him in the hospital, and providing updates on the progress of the investigation. With a few exceptions, the police see themselves as brothers-in-arms, and, like any tightly knit community, what affects one of them affects them all.
The flip side of community might be that very same intimacy that binds its members together. Small communities sometimes know each other too well, and, in the case of the Busbys, too much knowledge can be dangerous. Secrets are imperative for their survival, but secrets are difficult to keep when the entire town is like an extended family. When Amelia’s mother begins asking questions about where Cylin’s family is moving, she grows nervous and fabricates a lie. Indeed, the level of paranoia has become so heightened at that point that even the reader might wonder if Amelia’s mother has some nefarious purpose in mind. When the family moves, they hide their destination from the entire community, even John’s most trusted friends. While their security precautions might seem overly strict, any slip-up, even by a well-intentioned community member, could spell tragedy. Once the family is safely settled in Tennessee, it is the lack of community that provides a feeling of security: “Nobody knew anything about us, and that was how we wanted it” (329).
