Violent Death
To the Editor:
In her review of The Victim’s Song by Alice R. Kaminsky [Books in Review, January], Rachel Abrams makes us feel what Mrs. Kaminsky feels. Those of us who have dealt professionally with violent death have found it quite uncharming. I remember the wife of Milton Helpern, who was New York City’s chief medical examiner for many years, telling us how impatient she had been to go out on a case with her husband. When she did go—to a sordid killing in the lower stratum of society—she became sick, or almost. She never went again. Were I the Mikado, my object all sublime would be to sentence Norman Mailer and his ilk to a stretch in the city morgue.
Robert Carlen, M.D.
Sayville, New York
