Book Review: The Golden Boy By John Glatt

 SUMMARY:

By all accounts, Thomas Gilbert Jr. led a charmed life. The son of a wealthy financier, he grew up surrounded by a loving family and all the luxury an Upper East Side childhood could provide: education at the elite Buckley School and Deerfield Academy, summers in a sprawling seaside mansion in the Hamptons. With his striking good lucks, he moved with ease through glittering social circles and followed in his father's footsteps to Princeton.

But Tommy always felt different. The cracks in his façade began to show in warning signs of OCD, increasing paranoia, and--most troubling--an inexplicable hatred of his father. As his parents begged him to seek psychiatric help, Tommy pushed back by self-medicating with drugs and escalating violence. When a fire destroyed his former best friend's Hamptons home, Tommy was the prime suspect--but he was never charged. Just months later, he arrived at his parents' apartment, calmly asked his mother to leave, and shot his father point-blank in the head.

Journalist John Glatt takes an in-depth look at the devastating crime that rocked Manhattan's upper class. With exclusive access to sources close to Tommy, including his own mother, Glatt constructs the agonizing spiral of mental illness that led Thomas Gilbert Jr. to the ultimate unspeakable act

TEE'S THOUGHTS

How do you feel about the insanity plea in a murder charge? I have always felt that it was a sort of cop-out to try to get the person off on a lesser charge. I mean to me, you can not be a sane person and pick up a gun or knife and kill a person. After reading John Glatt's Golden Boy I realized like a lot of controversial subjects, that there are a lot of gray areas surrounding the insanity plea, especially with the people on trial.

Golden Boy is the story of Thomas " Tommy " Gilbert Jr, a privileged son of a successful hedge fund owner who grew up in the Hamptons. He went to the best private schools, socialized in the most exclusive clubs. You know the type. After graduation from high school, he was accepted into Princeton University, and it was there that his personality began to change, and to make a long story short he ended up within a few years after leaving Princeton killing his father,

There is no doubt that he murdered his father, even in the trial, it has more to do with if he is or isn't fit to stand trial. Now let me just say this, Tommy Gilbert did stick a gun to his father's head and kill him, but as I read through the book, I felt that while yes he was guilty of murder, he also was a victim.

Tommy Gilbert was a victim of a society that tends to make excuses or sweep mental illness under the table. One that makes it impossible for the loved ones of the sick person to get them help if they are over a certain age, and one where doctors don't seem to follow through with the best course of action for whatever reason.

It starts back when he was younger and his parents really downplayed his behavior, even feeding into some of it. Mental illness even ran in the family on the mother's side. They did seek help, but along with their own downplaying of it, were the doctors that also seemed to downplay it. They could never get a straight answer on what exactly was wrong with him. By the time he gets to Princeton and it gets worse, it is too late for his parents to take action on his behalf, he is over the age of 18. There were several times that Tommy had done something that would allow the doctors themselves to legally commit him, but they did not do so, and later said they should have.

I am not in any way saying that Tommy was innocent in this problem, he wasn't. He didn't want his peers to know he was sick, he refused to take his meds that had been prescribed to him, he lived off his parents because he could never seem to keep a job, or get on started. I felt that some of his actions, and I am not a doctor, it was just my feelings, were brought on by mental illness, and some were just being a spoilt rich kid and thinking he deserved what he wanted.

The real tragedy comes during the trial. The justice system just failed him. Two doctors told the judge that he was not fit to stand trial, and to me, his off behavior during it supported that finding, however one doctor says he is fit so the judge rules that he is. Why when two qualified doctors ruled he wasn't, were they ignored? Even his mother begged for the judge to give him the help he needed, to have him committed, and once he was well to send him to prison, she knew that if he went straight to prison he would never get the help he needed. She never once tried to claim he was innocent, she just wanted him to get the help he needed finally.

He does have times of clarity when he is on trial, but from what I understand, that is normal with mentally ill people

More than anything, my takeaway from reading Golden Boy is the failure to help someone who needed help so badly. His parents, his friends, his doctors, and Tommy himself, all tried to lessen his illness, until the point where it was too late. It is a true and devastating look at mental illness, both in a normal situation and in a legal situation.

This can be a disturbing read, but one that should be read. Glatt's research and writing are both insightful and riveting. And I did understand fully the verdict that the jury handed down and why they choose it, but I can't help thinking that if the judge had really listened and watched, his sentencing would have been different and maybe he would have gotten help.