Real People, Real Pain: On the Ethics of Telling True Stories of Trauma

In April of 2021, I announced on Facebook that I had sold my book.

By this time I had spent more than a decade following the story of my dad’s med-school classmate, Paul Volkman, who was sentenced to life in prison for prescription drug-dealing. And I had shared various updates on the site along the way: photos from reporting trips to Ohio, updates on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DEA, a link to a magazine article that I wrote about the case in 2017.

Within minutes, the congratulatory comments poured in.

“Your magnum opus! I can’t wait to read it!”

“So freaking happy for you!!”

“What wonderful and exciting news!”

“Way to go, Phil! Congrats!”

But amidst this digital round of applause, there was one comment that stuck out. It came from the sister of a man who had died from an apparent overdose of medication he had been prescribed by Volkman. He was one of more than a dozen deceased patients mentioned in Volkman’s indictment and discussed during his trial. During my reporting, Facebook was my primary means of connecting with their family members. And so, by the time of my book announcement, his sister and I were now friends.

“Remember Philip,” she wrote. “My brother…is still dead and mourned daily by his 3 children and his 5 siblings and many nieces and nephews and friends alike.” For her family, it wasn’t just the doctor who was serving a life sentence, she said; they were, too. She added, “Oh what I would give for one last hug.”

I read the comment with a wince, and I wrote her a lengthy response reiterating my condolences and describing the care and work I would be putting into the book. Below our chat, the joyful comments continued.

I’ve thought of that moment a lot recently. It is now 2024, and the book that I announced in 2021 has been written, edited, fact-checked, and printed. I recently received my box of finished copies. It is a major moment for me: my first book, the completion of years of reporting and writing, and the realization of a longtime dream.

And yet—as the comment from the victim’s family member crystallized so clearly—for a number of people, my book will be a public reminder of an excruciating wound.

How does an author navigate this terrain?

Before I ventured into bookstores and other venues, I asked authors of thematically similar books: is there any good way to promote a book about real people and real pain?

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It starts a long time before the book comes out.

Many of the authors I interviewed said that the seeds of a thoughtful rollout of a book are planted during the reporting and writing process. As Elon Green, author of the award-winning Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York, told me, “It would be very hard for me to imagine somebody who wrote a stone-cold classic with great sensitivity to go on a book tour and be a jackass.”

Becky Cooper, author of the acclaimed 2020 book We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence, says that even before a writer conducts interviews for a project like this, they should be honest with themself about at least two things. First, that their project is likely to cause people pain. And, second, that they should not presume that this project will solve anything, emotionally speaking, for the people affected by a crime. “I never fooled myself into thinking that I was offering any kind of resolution to the victim’s family members or friends,” she says.

Elizabeth Williamson, the New York Times staff writer and author of Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, reminded me that reactions to this kind of project are going to vary. Even one person’s feelings may shift over time. And this is all normal and completely understandable. “There is no reliable or ‘good’ or ‘bad’ response to this kind of trauma,” she says, “And I think, as journalists, we just have to be ready for that.” She, and other authors, told me that it’s wise to be prepared for intense responses—the phrase Williamson used was “stray voltage”—and not take them personally.

When it came to the work on the book itself, the most frequent refrain I heard—from nearly each of the authors I spoke to—was an emphasis on communication throughout the publishing process. This applied equally to people who agreed to be interviewed for a story and those who did not.

This meant informing people that the project was happening and giving anyone a chance to register their thoughts or feelings. It meant, for one author, writing a detailed, multi-page memo about new facts contained in the book, in the—understandable—event that folks wanted to access this information without wanting to read the book. It meant giving updates about publication date, film and TV adaptations, and other milestones along the way. It meant sending early copies to family members, so that they could avoid learning about painful details via reviews or other press coverage. And it meant making themselves available throughout the process to answer questions, or simply to listen. As Green described it, “I wanted them to be in the loop every step of the way.”

This wasn’t just about keeping people informed; it was also about offering agency. Williamson said that over the course of her reporting, she was ever-aware of the ways families of crime victims were deprived of power. “The worst thing in the world happens to you completely at random [and] it sort of tears your world off its axis, and you have no agency at all,” she said. To invite them into the storytelling process, if they wanted to participate, was a way to give back some of that lost control.

Aside from communicating, other authors described a commitment that I knew well: a fixation on getting the story right. Williamson described her “obsessive” pursuit of accuracy while working on her Newtown book. And Susan Zalkind, author of the recently-released The Waltham Murders: One Woman’s Pursuit to Expose the Truth Behind a Murder and a National Tragedy, told me, “I think the most distasteful thing anyone can do is get the facts wrong.”

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Once a book about tragic, real-life events is released, it brings considerations that are different from books about lighter fare. Elizabeth Williamson told me that even if her book hadn’t been released during COVID, she would have likely declined to have a book party. Given the subject of her book, it “just didn’t seem right,” she says.

Becky Cooper recalled how she was approached by a TV show that wanted to feature her book, but she turned down the offer. Agreeing would have meant ceding the tight control over the handling of the story that she had valued during her writing process. And this, she says, “was not a risk I was willing to take on behalf of either myself, but also, really, of the people in the story.”

Other authors described a heightened self-awareness about their behavior during post-release public appearances. Elon Green told me that during interviews and events for Last Call he thought often about how victims’ loved ones would react to what he was doing and saying, and this helped to guide his approach. Charles Graeber, the author of The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, told me that he worried that a photo of him beaming or laughing at a book event might end up in a victims’ support group on social media and send the wrong impression. He said there was “a bit of a glumness” to events he did for the book, which he found entirely appropriate.

Williamson described the care that she brought to her language about the project. On one level, she consciously avoided speaking for all Sandy Hook families, and instead focused on what specific people had told her. As she explained, “How would you feel if somebody that didn’t even know you is sort of speaking to your thoughts and emotions after the worst thing that ever happened to you?” She also made a point of using specific names whenever possible, instead of more generic descriptions like “a six year-old child.” Crime victims already lose so much, she said, and they don’t deserve to also lose their identity.

There were two important disclaimers that emerged from conversations about the post-launch approach to a nonfiction book on tragic events.

Charles Graeber said that, though he steered away from too-cheerful demeanor during book events, he was also conscious to avoid performative or melodramatic sadness. Over time, he says, he found a middle ground that felt both true to him and the subject matter.

Elon Green mentioned that although, like Graeber, he was careful to monitor his tone in public appearances, this didn’t mean he suppressed his feelings entirely. “Certainly, in private, I was very tickled with how [the book] was received, and with subsequent TV deals and things like that,” he told me. But how he acted at home was different from how he conducted himself in public. “I made sure that there was a very heavy demarcation,” he said.

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I am acutely aware that my worries over the proper way to promote my book are, in the big picture, minimal. In fact, this non-comparability came up in my conversation with Elizabeth Williamson. She recalled her discomfort when discussions of her book turned to the impact the project had on her. “How could you even talk about that against the backdrop of what has happened to these families?” she said.

It’s an important point. And yet, I think that among authors and other people interested in telling true stories, these discussions are important. After all, we live in a moment of  ”True Crime tours” and “True Crime Party Favors” and a company called Murder Apparel that sells blankets with faux blood stains. For every thoughtful essay about the ethics of true crime, there are countless folks who are happy to produce or consume it without much thought at all. For those of us who aspire to something more rigorous than, say, a CrimeCruise, it’s wise to compare notes and interrogate our methods.

In the end, I walked away from my conversations with a quick way for an author to ground themselves in the sobriety that these stories deserve. It came from a phone call I had with my friend, Jean Murley, who is a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design and author of the brilliant 2008 book, The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder Narratives and American Popular Culture. I started out as a fan of Jean’s after reading her book, and over time, we became friends. I’ve seen her discuss true crime in many settings—on stage, in classrooms, for TV shows—and I admire how she conveys enthusiasm for the subject matter without ever being tacky or callous. When I asked her whether her tone was a conscious choice, she said something memorable: “I take other people’s pain very seriously.”

A version of this idea popped up in many conversations with fellow authors.

Elon Green told me, “Never forget that these are real people, living and dead, and are deserving of respect.”

Elizabeth Williamson said, “Always, always, always put the victims first…This is their story, not yours.”

When I asked Jean for advice to someone promoting a nonfiction book about tragic events, she said that these stories need to be told, but by people who don’t shy away from the tough questions involved in telling them.

She, too, touched on the theme of remembering. “Never, ever forget that you are dealing with real people’s…intense pain and grief,” she said. “I think if you keep that up front, you’ll be okay.”

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Prescription for Pain: How a Once-Promising Doctor Became the Pill Mill Killer by Philip Eil is available from Steerforth Press.