Suffer The Little Children

Barbara Davis
1999
ISBN 0-7860-0664-1

This is the story of Jesse Cummings, a man driven by rage and violence, who was responsible for the murder of his sister and the rape and murder of his 11-year-old niece.

This was not an easy book to read. Actual content aside - the details of beatings, rapes and mental abuse is horrific - it wasn't written very well. The narrative is jerky, bouncing from the central story to the backstories of people just getting involved, and things are omitted or referred to without being explained (After everyone was arrested there is no further mention of the children until the epilogue, so we don't know what actually happened to them after the police raided the house).

The people are painted as barely as possible - there are accounts of events, but nothing that really offers a sense of who these people were, apart from repeated reminders that they were a monster and two broken women.

Jesse Cummings was sentenced to death for the crimes he was convicted for, and the author takes great delight in pointing out that he is now in a cell, forced to obey the orders of others. While the death sentence is certainly a fitting punishment, there is no record of his attitude or demeanour once the verdict was read, which I would have found interesting, if only to confirm how much of a sociopath he is/was.

Date Finished: 20/10/07
Year Total: 35