In this second episode of the My 3 Husbands Book Cast, Shelley reads Chapter 2, "The Crack in the Glass," and then sits down with her editor, Dr. Kent Gustavson, to talk about what she just read.
She opens by saying that what follows is not a record. The names are pseudonyms and the scene is her reconstruction, built from what she knew of him and what others pieced together. A wooden panel pulled off a bathroom wall, nothing behind it. His life savings gone, the money meant to get him from South Africa to his children in London. He collects his guns and drives to a coffee shop, where a fourteen-year-old girl steps between the barrel and her mother.
Kent starts at the end, at the koppie above the sea where he was found. That spot, Shelley says, is the only part of the chapter she knows to be true. She has stood there. They talk about the line "the whole sky coming down," and what sits against it, the pistol he once taught her to strip and rebuild in the dark until she could do it without looking. Money was how he controlled her, and someone had just taken his.
Tune in to hear why Shelley put a child in that scene, and what Kent says about the power a fourteen-year-old had, whether she knew it or not.
Content Warning:
This episode discusses suicide, self-harm, and other sensitive topics that some listeners may find distressing. Please take care while listening.
If you or someone you know is struggling:
Samaritans (UK & Ireland): Call 116 123
Pieta (Ireland): Call 1800 247 247
Chatpers:
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00:04 Shelley Anne Crawford on why this chapter is imagination, not a record
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01:16 The money gone from behind the wall, and what it was for
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05:33 The birthday call three weeks before, and the woman he had ruined
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06:41 A barrel on the kitchen glass, and the fourteen-year-old who stepped in
⛰️
09:12 The koppie above the sea, the only part she knows is true
☁️
11:56 The whole sky coming down, and the intimacy of the next line
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15:51 Money was the mechanism of control, and then somebody took his
Episode 2
