Anyone who realizes that neither criminal justice systems, the press, public opinion, nor even well-meaning activist movements always get it right trying to serve justice will have no problem believing author Demetrios (Jim) Angelis’s THE OTTAWA WAY: Guilty by Gender in Canada’s Capital. In this extensive memoir, Angelis goes into great detail depicting how many facets of society–set up to protect the innocent and punish the guilty–ended up doing he and his two children wrong. From police officers who did not take his initial calls regarding domestic abuse by his wife seriously– culminating in a long-term extramarital boyfriend attempting to aid her in fleeing the country with Angelis’s young son–to all the lawyers, judges, juries and reporters who did not know how to prove Angelis’s wife could have died of natural causes during a heated altercation where the husband had to physically defend himself while trying to restrain his enraged wife. Also failing Angelis and his children were the social service organizations who were ostensibly looking out for the kid’s best interests while being hell-bent on getting them legally adopted as soon as possible in an effort to keep them separate from their own extended birth family members, thus managing to injure three generations of familial relationships.
While it may not be as difficult as it once was for readers to comprehend that human interactions sometimes involve women allegedly being perpetrators of domestic violence against men (think Johnny Depp/Amber Heard), it is also true is that the predominant instances of domestic abuse remains against women. And here is where some readers might begin to take issue with some opinions expressed in Angelis’s book. Studies are cited that do indicate men too can be victims–which is the author’s point–but these go on to specify that as a gender, females still have the preponderance of violent crimes perpetrated against them rather than by them. So Angelis’s frequent disparaging comments about how strong women and the #MeToo movement negatively impacted his life/case seem unwarranted, and may serve to only rub some readers, who might otherwise have sympathized with this story, the wrong way. Explorations regarding how racism/colorism affect justice, on the other hand, are fascinating. In point of fact, everyone regardless of gender, race, culture, class, etc. deserves a life unscathed by violence, just as all victims of violence deserve genuine justice. While the author probably needed to purge himself of the multiplicity of details contained in this volume, providing an abridged version for those seeking a briefer, tauter page-turner would likely be useful.
Accused of murder, THE OTTAWA WAY by Demetrios (Jim) Angelis offers an exhaustive, thought-provoking (if somewhat gender-biased) examination of concepts including intergenerational abuse, the vulnerability of nurturing men and ‘what if’ questions concerning how alternate choices at critical junctures might have changed events producing less horrific outcomes.
~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader