Ngoc's Corner of Language Arts 10th

The novel While They Slept gives us incite on the murder of a family committed by Billy Gilley. The novel is written by Kathryn Harrison, who wrote the book based on information she gathered from Jody, Billy's sister who was upstairs when Billy committed the crime. Kathryn Harrison, interested in the murder, repeats that her life, just like Jody's has a before and after that separates the two. Kathryn compares her life with Jody's by stating, "I Identify what I assume is a connection between us, this sense of having - living - a life divided into a before and after, as part of what drives my curiosity about her and her family, and the history they shared" (12). In the story, she doesn't talk so much about the murder or talks about any image of it, but just talks about the after and before part of the life before the murder. She states that not only does she interview Jody, but also got files from the police with her permission and even got permission from her to see Jody's brother(the murderer) who committed the crime. She explains to us how Jody and Billy's affidavit are exactly the same as what they say, but in a way contradict each other. All of makes it hard to understand, but can be what they know or what Billy is trying to say in order for him to get an appeal to his case. Her novel is interesting because it differs from other murder books in where it talks more about the psychological and social part of the case instead of focusing on the case at all. In fact, she doesn't describe any scene of the murder, she just talks about the life of Jody and Billy before the murder and after it and the psychological as well as social effects that it is bringing to Jody. Kathryn states Jody believes "he is dangerous and should remain in prison--" (54). Billy had pressured Jody into providing him an affidavit in order to record their family life in the trial. Jody had refused to do so until she had thought of this reason. She had also refused to do it because her brother had threatened her through fails before. In the next part of the book, it explores the past behind Billy and Jody's family that lead to such a catastrophic event on April 26, 1984.

The book focuses on the lives of Billy and Jody's family before the murder. It talks about the hard life that Jody's parents had to live before they were settled on a farm house where the murder took place. Gilley's parents had been running from debt and been trying to receive public assistance from both states at once. The novel states, "Welfare documents show that they attempted to prove simultaneous residency in both California and Oregon - producing a gas bill here, a receipt for a few weeks' rent there - so as to collect public assistance from both states as once" (59). Not only does it tell of there poor family, but it also told of there dad's problem with Alcoholism. Jody's dad, Bill (not Billy, Billy's the son), was an alcoholic and treated the kids poorly as to even sexually abuse Jody and beat up Billy. It tells us of their family problems and how it soon evolved into something bigger. However, according to Kathryn, Jody wasn't really surprised at her brother's actions towards their parents. Kathryn Harrison states, "In fact, none of Jody's answers to detective Davis's questions suggest she found her brother's comments shocking or even unusual" (37). It leads to tell us of that the family problems that Billy and Jody had been experiencing had just been building up, and something like this would've happened sooner or later. There family was poor, the children were abused, and the parents were oppressive, beating and throwing slander at them continuously. However, even as serious as it would have seemed, Jody would've never thought that her brother would decide to go as far as killing their parents as well as their 11 year old sister, Becky.