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Eustace Google: The strange, sad case of Brandenn Bremmer
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: Brandenn Bremmer, depression, Eric Konigsberg, Letter From Nebraska, prodigies, suicide
Emily Gordon writes:
I’m interested to see what people are saying about “Prairie Fire,” the Letter From Nebraska by Omaha native Eric Konigsberg in this week’s New Yorker. The piece is about the suicide, last March, of the 14-year-old homeschooled rural Nebraska prodigy Brandenn Bremmer and his heartbroken, perplexed parents, who gave nearly all their material and emotional resources to developing Brandenn’s interests and career. There’s not much talk about the piece yet, since it’s not online and it’ll take a few more days for most people to get the current issue, but just after Bremmer’s death there was plenty of press coverage and internet discussion. Here’s the Blog of Death obituary; I’ve omitted the many links (some expired).
Brandenn E. Bremmer, a 14-year-old musical prodigy from Nebraska, sustained a gunshot wound to the head on March 15. The boy died the following day at Children’s Hospital in Denver. Authorities suspect he committed suicide.
Bremmer taught himself to read when he was 18 months old. He began playing the piano at 3 and was home-schooled from kindergarten on. At 10, Bremmer became the youngest person to graduate through the Independent Study High School conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Described by friends and family as a bright young man who smiled often, Bremmer dressed up like Harry Potter — one of his favorite literary characters — for his graduation picture.
Bremmer was only 11 when he began studying piano improvisation at Colorado State University at Fort Collins, Colo. Last year, he released his debut album, “Elements,” and gave concerts in Colorado and Nebraska. The day his body was found, Bremmer had just completed the artwork for the cover of his second CD, which features meditative, New Age piano music.
Like most kids, he loved watching cartoons, playing video games, riding his bike and catching fish. In January, Bremmer enrolled in a biology class at Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, Neb. He planned to graduate from the University of Nebraska’s medical school by the time he was 21 and become an anesthesiologist.
His mother, mystery writer Patricia Bremmer, said he showed no signs of depression and didn’t leave a suicide note. Bremmer’s kidneys were donated to two people. His liver went to a 22-month-old and his heart to an 11-year-old boy.
The comments are worth reading, too, including one by a 13-year-old named Sydney Lee Smith, who appears to have been a friend of Bremmer’s. (Smith and her mother, Mary, are also quoted in this Lincoln Journal Star piece about the suicide.) More on this soon, and send in any links you find.
Also via Blog of Death: photos of an older Bremmer (he’s seven in the one The New Yorker used), and details about his piano-composition recording Elements, on the Windcall Enterprises page.
“He maybe just kind of ‘crashed’ like computers can,” and other spontaneous theories on the case from back in March, on Common Ground Common Sense.
There’s been a spirited, provocative debate on Wikipedia on the definition of “child prodigy” and which alleged prodigies (including Bremmer, Willie Nelson, and Michael Jackson) to include on the site. In a separate thread, Wikipediaers argue about whether to delete Bremmer’s page on the site, and whether Bremmer should really be considered “notable.” (The page was indeed deleted.) It’s a useful look inside the workings of Wikipedia, too. A user named Stan, a passionate and caustic advocate for deleting Bremmer’s entry, writes:
This is a very strange and sad story of child abuse, in which a boy’s parents tried to live vicariously through him by pushing him beyond his abilities, vanity-publishing his CDs and helping him with high-school homework to get him through at an accelerated pace. He cracked under the pressure and killed himself. Now that he’s dead, those close to him are still trying to live through him, this time by posting and reposting the same wikipedia article about him. I find the situation monstrous. If we have an article about how child prodigies are manipulated and exploited by their parents, we might merge this with that, as a further example, but I don’t know that such an article exists, or if such an article would meet wikipedia standards. It’s also true that many child prodigies go on to do no significant work as adults—many prodigies are simply experiencing an early spurt and turn out to be average-functioning adults. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it highlights the fact that a prodigy is not necessarily notable just for being a prodigy. So I vote to delete this once again.
“Child abuse” is very strong language for what is surely a subtler moral question. The blogger Terrette posted critical comments about the Bremmer family just after Bremmer’s death and got an email from (it seems) the same friend of the family, Mary Smith, who was quoted in the Lincoln Journal Star piece. Terrette defends her position, point by point, and makes it clear that for her the central issue is gun control:
If I may address my displeased reader frankly: I know it must suck to feel that some long-winded East Coast liberal who probably doesn’t even have kids is trying to tell you right from wrong, but please know that I read the newspapers and see the incidents of juvenile suicide and homicide tallied month after month, and the whole thing has made me wonder: What’s going on in this country? However much you’d like to believe that Brandenn Bremmer took that gun in his hands in a quiet little corner of Nebraska — a place with its own rules and customs and that, as such, is radically exceptional to things that take place on the East Coast or in regions where liberals haven’t developed a proper fondness for weapons — the fact is that Brandenn killed himself in a nation where such incidents are common and where laws regulating minors’ unsupervised access to guns are uniformly lax. Moreover, these laws are lax not because of some Constitutional right that the framers of that document set down in law so that all the nation’s children could take up arms against a potential new wave of British Redcoats, or so that seasonal hunting traditions in the Midwest would go undisturbed, but because the National Rifle Association has long targeted our politicians in Washington with its powerful lobby and thereby assured its friends gun-sale profits at the expense of all social, regional, and safety-related considerations. If the NRA could facilitate the sale of semi-automatic rifles to all the teenagers of this nation, believe me, it would. And no amount of killing of and by our children would ever allay the NRA members’ passion for peddling and glorifying weapons. Their short-sighted and self-serving claim will always be: “it’s not the guns that kill, it’s the shooters.”
Update: Hey there, googlers! Don’t be shy; what do you think of what you’ve read about Bremmer’s life and the criticisms above?
Further update: There’s an interesting discussion of Konigsberg’s piece on Gifted Exchange, “the blog about gifted children, schooling, parenting, education news and changing American education for the better.”
Additional note: In the introduction to this post, I’ve made a slight change to my description of Brandenn’s grieving parents. I think, on reflection, that my original tone had an unsympathetic tinge I didn’t intend. It’s often said that the death of a child is the worst pain a person can experience, and I believe it.
And: Well, everyone’s talking about it now, including John Derbyshire in National Review Online:
You know how once in a while you read something that leaves you feeling vaguely disturbed — suddenly unsettled and insecure, as after a minor earth tremor? Well, that’s my current state. The offending text was Eric Konigsberg’s piece “Prairie Fire” in the January 16 issue of The New Yorker.
…
Obviously he was a very nice kid, the sort you’d want your own kids to mix with. His suicide seems, from Konigsberg’s account, utterly inexplicable.
The suicide of a child is of course one of the major nightmares of parenting. That is one reason I, as a parent, find the Brandenn Bremmer story unsettling. If THIS kid could do it, who might not? Even aside from that, though, there is something about suicide that is deeply disconcerting to all of us. We have all known instances among our acquaintance, or, if we are unlucky, in our own families. An odd thing I have noticed is that a suicide, even of someone we are not strongly connected to, makes us angry…. I suppose this anger is just an acknowledgment of the fact that killing yourself is the most selfish thing you can do — a gross betrayal of your social responsibilities, the first and foremost of which is to exist, so you can carry out all the others. Surely the old dishonoring of a suicide’s corpse — in Christian countries, it could not be buried in consecrated ground — reflects something of this instinctual anger. Continued.
Discussion is ongoing at the New Yorker Forums. Don’t get me wrong—I think the human brain is just as wondrous as it is ridiculous and rigged—but there sure are a lot of people who use the word “gifted” to describe both their children and themselves as kids. I wonder how this plays out across the classes? Who gets to be called “gifted,” and when does the constant reminder of “giftedness” become a burden? It seems like a crude, loaded word that probably causes more problems than it solves. (I speak as a beneficiary of a groovy, ill-planned “talented and gifted” public high school track that rewarded the students who actually showed up to school with countless hours of unstructured hanging out. Fun! American history? We caught up on that later, or didn’t. True believer Mr. Ihle was the exception. Next track after TAG? “Academically Motivated.” God knows what they called the next down from that.) Feel free to argue.
Speaking of arguments, there are posters on the New Yorker Forums who say they’re close to the Bremmers and that Konigsberg misrepresented them, took quotes out of context, knew the story he was going to write before he wrote it, etc., etc. I’m sure people in that community are feeling exposed and sore, but these are familiar complaints; we all know the polls about how little people trust journalists.
[Updated:] As I remember it, Konigsberg expresses open skepticism only once, in a brief aside when listening to the afterlife theories of Hilton Silverman, who’s married to Linda Silverman of the Gifted Development Center. Antidisingenuousmentarianism typed in much of the passage (which I double-checked because I’m fanatical that way):
“Well, I can tell you what the spirits are saying,” [Hilton Silverman] said. “He was an angel.”
[Linda] Silverman turned to face me. “I’m not sure how much you know about my husband. Hilton is a psychic and a healer. He has cured people of cancer.”
“It kind of runs in my family: my grandfather was a kabbalistic rabbi in Brooklyn, and my father used to heal sick babies with kosher salt,” Hilton said. “Brandenn was an angel who came down to experience the physical realm for a short period of time.”
I asked Hilton how he knew this. He paused, and for a moment I wondered if he was pulling my leg and trying to think up something even more outlandish to say next. “I’m talking to him right now,” he said. “He’s become a teacher. He says right now he’s actually being taught how to help these people who experience suicides for much messier reasons. Before Brandenn was born, this was planned. And he did it the way he did so that others would have use for his body. Everything worked out in the end.”
I just started at that “much messier reasons” on rereading—as though the reasons are the tragedy, and the suicide is incidental. I haven’t reread “Prairie Fire,” but except for that “pulling my leg,” I don’t think Konigsberg reveals any feelings about the matter one way or the other.
In any case, all this just continues to demonstrate that the internet is—yes, Eyebeam panel, it is—a pretty effective forum for democratic free speech. I’m glad the rural, homeschooling, non-coastal subjects of New Yorker articles can respond in a widely distributed public place to what’s written about them, even if the integrity of the journalism ultimately prevails.
More discussion at Urban Semiotic.
New and interesting: A journalist tries to contact Linda Silverman about the New Yorker story for Colorado’s New West. Links are theirs.
This week’s New Yorker features a long, and wrenching, profile of Brandenn Bremmer, a prodigiously gifted 14-year-old from western Nebraska who killed himself in his bedroom at his parents’ farm last March. Figuring prominently in the story is Linda Silverman, who runs the Gifted Development Center, a “resource center for developmentally advanced children and their parents” in Denver.
Silverman, who lives in Golden, doesn’t come off particularly well in the story; writer Eric Konigsberg details her tendency to grade smart kids at IQ-levels well off the scale that most child-development experts consider valid, including a 2001 case in which she scored an 8-year-old boy’s IQ at “298-plus.” That boy was later found to have been coached on the exam by his mother. Interviewed after Brandenn Bremmer’s death, Silverman told Konigsberg that the teenager’s parents “had contacts with him after he left his body” and that Brandenn’s “mission to assist others in this lifetime may have been fulfilled by his death” (Bremmer’s organs were donated to several recipients).
Curious about Silverman’s reactions to the New Yorker article, I rang up the Gifted Development Center. Silverman wasn’t available, and a staffer named Lee Ann politely informed me that she would have no comment on the story “because of confidentiality requirements.”
“So,” I said, “I take it Linda is not talking to anyone with the press about this story.”
“We simply can’t,” Lee Ann replied.
I thanked her and hung up, refraining from pointing out that this makes no sense; any confidentiality restrictions between Silverman and Brandenn Bremmer (who met Silverman as a young boy and attended several GDC events, according to the story) were violated by Silverman’s extensive interviews with Konigsberg, in which she discussed Bremmer at length.
The whole subject of gifted children has become a fraught one, with experts debating what constitutes “giftedness” and disagreeing how such way-above-average kids should be nurtured and taught. The example of Brandenn Bremmer is a cautionary one for all of us who suspect our kids might be brilliant. Unfortunately, Linda Silverman, at least in this instance, doesn’t seem to be shedding much light on the subject.
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I read the New Yorker article on the Bremmer kid and it brought to light a few issues that the press neglected to examine.For instance the I.Q. test Bremmer was given (and recieved a 178) was dubious at best. Second Brandenn’s first piano teacher did not think the kid was a gifted player. Brendenn’s piano teacher at Colarodo thought he had potential and matured as a player but did not mention the word gifted. His parents believed him gifted but most parents will say positive things about thier offspring.His parents claim where were no warning signs before the suicide. However the author points out a few signs off extreme stress. Brandenn told a friend in an email that he was really depressed. Second he quit piano just when he was starting to get good. Third was questioning wheather or not he wanted to become a doctor. Forth he did not like biology and recieved a C+ on a biology exam. Fifth he was planning on moving out of his parents house to attend college. Sixth he had no friends that he saw on a regular basis. To say that he showed no signs of depression is navie at best.On another note I have seen article after article on homeschooling and guns in connection with the Bremmer suicide. This poor kid is dead and people are using him to advocate thier casues. I must say I agree that he probably should have gone to something social-wheather it be school or sports or theather. However I do not think this suicide means homeschooling is bad or leads to depression. The parents knew that genious kids (such as thier son) were more likely to commit suicide then the average kid. They should have not given him acess to a gun. I know all you gun advocates out thier are going to call me a facist, elist, east coast, snob. However I think it is common sense to keep a stressed out person away from a gun. I am not trying to blame to parents, I just think a little common sense could have prevented this tragedy.
This article isn’t so much about the tragic life and death of Brendenn so much as it’s a case study on a pair of parents whose unquestioning acceptance “child prodigy†label has left them a badly warped view of reality. This is a pair of parents who certainly neglected their child’s emotional needs (isolating him from friends, pushing him to fulfill their dreams, insisting that he was an “adult”) and their child’s physical safety (leaving him alone with a gun). What sickens me about the parents is their obliviousness-—their foolish insistence that they “did everything right,†and the way they spin this “indigo child†psychobabble to make Brendenn’s death seem like a positive end in itself. It’s hard to imagine the reporter keeping a straight face through the interviews with Brendenn’s parents, seeing as how almost everything they have to say about their son is either flatly contradicted by other interviewees or simply impossible (starting to speak in complete sentences, teaching himself to read).
Whatever else was going on here, it seems creepily consistent with some kind of odd variation of Munchausen-by-proxy. Genius by proxy - the parents weren’t getting enough attention (for their genius? for mom’s writing?) and so this smart kid was pushed to be a super achiever, or appear to be one.The kid got a B+ in “General Math 2” which is described by the program that offers it as dealing with positive and negative numbers, square roots, Cartesian coordinates, the metric system, and other related very basic concepts. Yeah, the kid was 11. But going through the school system I went through in a normal way, a smart kid would learn all this stuff between 5th and 7th grade - ages 10 to 12. So is it great that he did it all as an 11-year-old? Yes. Is it An Incredible Feat Never Before Equalled In The History of Mankind? Not even close. The whole thing, including the frequent articles in the local press (which you can see if you Google) and the first-ever graduation ceremony, etc., strikes me as needless pressure about, aggrandizement of and, possibly, inflation of, of the kid’s achievements.The parents, in the article, say they never did anything wrong w/r/t raising him. That, in itself, rings a lot of alarm bells.Bottom line is the kid is dead, and the parents, even if my Munchausen scenario in which they pushed him and did some of his homework for him, etc., is true, are mourning. Even if they made a mountain out of a molehill (or a UberGenius out of a smart kid) they didn’t deserve this.This wouldn’t be the first case of this kind. It merits just one sentence in the New Yorker story (without even a name) but Justin Chapman’s case seems to have huge similarities. http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/justin/index.shtml Kid is pushed by mom, who has him tested and cheats for him on IQ tests and school tests. Kid develops suicidal ideation. All in all, tragic.
Helen, do you have any sources for concluding that high IQ people have a higher incidence of suicide? I’ve never seen a study supporting that theory, and have seen several supporting the opposite, the most recent I can recall is noted at:http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=523522Here is a clip from that article:“We looked at the association between scores of intelligence tests and later suicides,” Gunnell said. “There was about a two- to three-fold difference among those scoring best on the test and those scoring least well, with the higher risk being those at the lower end of the scale.”The findings appear in the Jan. 22 issue of the British Medical Journal.Gunnell speculated that because poor performance on IQ tests has been associated with greater risk of mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, that could explain the finding. People who suffer from schizophrenia are at a considerably higher risk for suicide than the general population, he added.Another reason for the association may be that people who perform poorly on IQ tests make poorer life choices. “They are more likely to occupy lower-income jobs,” Gunnell said. “And because of the association of poverty with suicide, that may contribute with the association.”Furthermore, those who score higher may have a better ability to cope with depression and other life problems. “It could simply be that what we are seeing here is the difference between individuals and their capacity to problem-solve when faced with severe life events,” Gunnell said.__________________________________For the record, I don’t think guns should be in homes with members who are known to be stressed out or have anger mangement issues, but this child did not appear to the parents to be stressed. I quit piano, so did my husband (after he had taken it from ages 6 to 16 and was noted in his high school yearbook time and again as a fanstastic piano player 0 he was the only one ever asked to play for the high school musicals), and for neither of us did it have a thing to do with depression and my guess is, it doesn’t for most people who quit piano, even those who are getting awards in competitions like my husband did. The email, if it was geniune (and there is some discussion about its authenticity, so I can’t be sure), would be a sign, I agree, even if he was trying to be empathic to a friend who was going through a hard time emotionally. But the parents never saw the email, is my understanding. Tons of people who have considered becoming a doctor at some point question if they want to be a doctor. Heck, my brother was in a neurosurgery residency when he opted to drop the brain surgeon route and use his other science degrees (he had four total) to publish and get patents and do far more varied work instead, and he hasn’t killed himself. Do you have any idea how many people earn a C+ (or lower) on biology exams and have few of those are depressed or ever commit suicide? In my son’s pre-med bio class, there were over 300 students registered and over half were flunking after the first two exams but there were no suicides in that class. Most people move out from their parents’ house to attend college, and again, very few commit suicide. And quite a few kids have no friends that they see on a regular basis and yet here again, few such kids commit suicide. I have a friend who is eminent (National Medal of Technology winner, in the Hall of Fame for Computers and at least one other area, best selling author, etc.) and didn’t have a single friend until he started MIT at age 18, but being friendless never sent him packing, so to speak, and in Brendenn’s case, it appears he had many friends, some of whom he indeed DID see quite regularly from the posts I’ve been reading today on various sites.Yes, if you put all the changes together, it increases the odds of the person going through a confusing and rough spot, but keep in mind that (according to the parents, who should know best as they lived with him at the time) he was eating normally, sleeping normally, and in all other outward ways, acting normally. And with someone who is determined to commit suicide, lacking a gun won’t really matter. There was a woman on a suicide watch in a mental institution who wasn’t even allowed to have her clothes on in her padded cell let alone bedsheets as doctors feared she could somehow used them to strangle herself, but they had no idea she had a bobby pin in her hair, and when nobody was watching (as they didn’t watch 24/7), she used that pin to stab herself in her heart over and over again and died (I can’t even see how she pulled this off as that has got to be tough to do both as far as pain goes and getting the pin to go in that far, but she did it somehow). Granted, I am not for making things easier by keeping guns around as I know suicide is more prevalent in homes with guns, but I am also not so sure not having a gun in the house would have stopped Brandenn…we’ll never know. Certainly it doesn’t take much more effort to hang oneself and yet I’ve never heard anyone suggest we keep rope out of the homes of all families with teens or stressed out people. I think the better preventative measure might be to help kids to not take life’s problems so seriously and to focus more on life’s good whenever times seem bad.
Dear Anonymous,I know there have been studies that say that suicide rates are lower among gifted children. However many other studies point in the opposite direction. As example is:Joy and Loss:The Emotional Lives of Gifted Childrenby Joshua Freedman and Anabel Jensen, Ph.D.In their book they claim that gifted children tend to be perfectionist, and perfectionists tend to commit suide at a higher rate then the general population. Why-because they are stressed out all the time, trying to get everything perfect. I am inclined to bielive these authors over the authors that point out the opposite. Kids that are driven by thier parents and themselves to constantly overachieve will evenually crack.As for the stresses Brandenn was under not being cause for suicide, I beg to differ. Brandenn was 14 and about to move out of his parents home. Lots of kids move out at 18 but 14 is a bit young. A C+ in Biology is not devestating to a kid who does not feel pressured to perform. Neighter of Brandenn’s parents graduated from college so the pressure to perform was more then to the “average kid”. Yes I agree with the bit about the parents not knowing about the email. Apparently this women that Brandenn conferred with had a few emotional problems herself. She talked with Brandenn a lot about suicide. I would think if the parents knew thier kid as well as they siad they did, they would know the girl he was talking to had suicidal thoughts.As far your point about guns in the house. Those people with ready access to guns commit suicide at a much higher rate then those without. Brandenn might have been so far gone that nothing would have prevented the suicide, yet I think otherwise. Brandenn did not give away possesions, stop eating, or show other suicidal signs. It seems to me that he might have had second thoughts considering he did not leave a note. As far as you rope theory goes-tell me how hany teenagers hang themselves? Is it truly a number as big as those that shot themselves?
I read this article this week, and it was haunting. I agree with many of the people who have said that Brandenn didn’t have a social life, he exhibited signs of depression, and that he was pushed too far. Having a smart kid is a way to make up for other shortcomings, although I agree no parent deserves to suffer this kind of grief. But I hope people will think twice about pushing for “smartness” over all else. It helps to be friendly too, and to be at ease in your own skin.
Helen, I never meant to imply that teens hang themselves as often as they shoot themselves, though if you read The Tipping Point, the teens noted in that book (none of whom likely had access to a gun as they were in a tribe or something on an island, I am thinking, but it’s been years since I read the book and am not sure) all did the hang method.But since you inquired, I did look it up.http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:d6Mcs5qfuVEJ:www.irmrc.unsw.edu.au/documents/injuryprofile/suicide.pdf+suicide+method+percentages&hl=enHanging is the number one method, representing 39% of suicides (this is for all ages, not just teens). Poison comes in number 2 at 34% and firearms comes in number 3, a distance number 3, at 11%.So yes, rope could be the more dangerous thing to have in your house, as well as any kind of poison. The thing is we aren’t likely to easily rid our homes of all poisons (I, for one, like to use laundry detergent and toilet cleaner) or rope while not having a gun in the home is a pretty easy measure to take.I am not convinced that having parents who never graduated college makes kids feel more pressure to perform. I am the child of a father who did his doctoral work in physics at an Ivy university and a mother who was the first female graduate of the National War College and GS 17 at the Pentagon - she was a mathematician who not only had a college degree, but earned it with all A’s other than for a D in swimming and went on to get a graduate degree. I’m pretty confident the pressure to perform was greater in my family than in most where parents had no college degrees, as I went to college and graduate school with many such students and their stress level from parents frankly seemed no where close to as high. For parents with no college degree, a child just passing in college is usually seen as fantastic as they are already accomplishing more than the parents did academically.Moving out being a stress depends more on the individual than the individual’s chronological age. I grew up next to a gal who still hasn’t moved out from her parents’ home and she’s 48, and to the other side of my parents’ home resides a man in his 50’s or 60’s who still lives in his childhood home - never moved out. Some people never get whatever it takes to move out. Others are intellectually and emotionally mature enough to handle it far younger. Didn’t Benjamin Franklin split the family at age 12? In some cultures even today, people are long since out on their own (if not married) before 14.Again, I am not claiming these were not issues contributing to Brandenn’s suicide, but pointing out that I don’t believe anyone can feel so sure that they were, as some seem to feel.Someone wrote:“Having a smart kid is a way to make up for other shortcomings”Frankly, I have a smart kid and I don’t find it makes up for other shortcomings in the least. Indeed, it only highlight my shortcomings. My kid is constantly correcting me (in a kind and not demeaning tone) in front of others (as I have told him he can feel free to do with me as I am open to seeing whatever I am missing, but should not feel free to do with others as some would be offended) and it’s not easy having your errors in logic and fact corrected more times a day than you can even count. You have to have a sense of humor about it. A child’s accomplishments are not the parents’ accomplishments, and so having a smart kid can more highlight the parents’ own mediocrity rather than make them somehow “special”. This someone also wrote:“But I hope people will think twice about pushing for ‘smartness’ over all else. It helps to be friendly too, and to be at ease in your own skin.”I couldn’t agree more than being a good person and comfortable in your own skin is more important than being smart, and happen to feel most parents of smart kids DO stress being friendly and comfortable in their own skin. I met Brandenn years ago, and he seemed very friendly to me, and every single person who has met him in person has felt the same - that he was a very friendly, nice guy. What troubles many of us who met the kid is that he also seemed comfortable in his own skin and yet, unless he truly did take his own one life to save the lives of several (which I doubt as you’d think he’d leave a note if that was the reason rather than depression), he certainly wasn’t comfortable with who he was at the time he shot himself. I think it is quite possible that many people who generally feel comfortable in their own skin go through a point (or several) in life where they feel they would be doing society a favor by existing stage left. And the important thing for depressed people to realize is that even most depressed people go through good times and to just wait out the sadness till the happiness returns.
It must be really nice to be sufficiently disaffected by ones own “intelligence” being vastly different to the norm to be able to sit in judgment of how important anyone elses “smarts” are to THEIR BEING and THEIR life experiences.FYI … its not just “smarts” that are usually “highly developed” but the Central Nervous System as a whole … any aspect of ones sensory processing or all of it can be highly developed to an extent most people could not even begin to imagine … every touch, all visual and auditory information - even ones perceptual processing of emotions - tastes - smells … all those things that so many so ignorantly take for granted are essentially “the same” for “people” are likely in ANY combination to be as highly “advanced” as intellect itself.When ones experience of life is such - the LONELIEST place in the world is when one is surrounded by “blissfully ignorant” people whose only concern is that you dumb yourself down to a level that doesnt threaten them. They could CARE LESS about how “you” experience life or what you go through … nah - all they care about is THEMSELVES.His parents were right to protect him from the foolish, ignorant prejudices of everyday society - they are to be applauded for being brave enough to act in their sons best interests rather than doing what most parents would do and act according to what will be most approved of by society.As for his parents “pushing him” … obviously ignorance reveals itself yet again … perhaps ONE DAY such ignorance will be but a subject for discussion in a historical context and will be replaced instead with understanding and empathy and acceptance that while everyone is different some are more different than others - and we will start appropriately meet the needs of those who not only learn at a rate beyond the comprehension of many (with no pushing whatsoever - only requiring “permission” and opportunity to do so) but also learn and experience life differently.Realistically its not going to happen any time soon … how people love to gloat at “tall poppies” being chopped off at the knees!It gets my back up no end the extent to which people who percieve themselves as being “average” intellectually consider it to be perfectly acceptable to pick apart those of exceptional cognitive development as if they are not “real people” with real feelings! If THAT is your idea of being a “good kind understanding person” then you can keep it. I would be utterly ashamed of my self if I was to adopt such attitudes and values for myself …. how can one do that and not feel embarrassed and ashamed is beyond me.
Just read the New Yorker article and my first impression is that this kid was too isolated. Great scot! Not only was he living on a farm, but he was home-schooled by a mother who put her hand on his heart daily to feel its beat? My flesh creeps. It occurred to me that this boy spent his entire life trying to live up to his parents’ ideal of what he should be. His mother in particular was heavily invested in his being a Mozartean genius. I think that one of the fundamental insecurities of gifted kids is that they worry people value them only for their intelligence. If they weren’t smart, would mom still love them, would they still be special? My suspicion is that Brandenn, hitting adolesence, was feeling the usual rebellious urges and, having spent all of this life trying to be a little adult, had a particularly tough time reconciling them to the boy genius role he’d been playing to such acclaim from his parents. Perhaps to his 14-year-old mind, suicide was one way to duck the whole issue of asserting an identity separate from his parents. The horrid irony of course is that even after death, poor Brandenn is still being manipulated by his mother, who now has moved from bruiting his brilliance to declaring him first cousins with Jesus and Gandhi, complete with supernatural powers. One wonders how much she would have valued her son if his IQ had been merely a Lake Woebegonean “above average.” My 18-year-old son had two friends who recently committed suicide, both by hanging, and I’ve thought long and hard in the past few months about this subject. Both of these boys’ suicides were impulsive acts; neither had a history of depression or exhibited any of the warning signs of suicide before his death. Teen-agers are so impulsive. Their moods can swing wildly from euphoria to the abyss in a snap. Short of locking them in a padded gym until their car insurance rates tell you it’s safe to let them out, parents at least should get the guns, drugs, and poison out of the house, so they don’t enable suicidal impulses. I agree wholeheartedly with the posters who take issue with Brandenn’s access to a loaded gun. His parents, who perpetually confused Brandenn’s IQ with emotional maturity, let him down miserably.
Wanted to add a note to my comment above.The more I stewed over this article, the more sure I was that the mother is what is termed a marginal personality. What finally confirms that opinion is her publicizing Brandenn’s death as some bizarre sacrifice. She can’t accept that her son’s death is a horrific, but typical teen suicide. She has to inflate it the same way that she inflated his intelligence and accomplishments. This isn’t grieving - this is an obscene form of narcissism that’s beyond the beyonds.I’d be very interested to read what others who know the mother thought of her.
Take a look at the New Yorker forum. Two family friends seemed unable to understand that teen suicide is a tragic event, or that the mother was emotionally involved in her son’s perceived achievements. Truly creepy. And then they complained about the media, apparently not noticing that the boy’s mother had pushed him onto television at the tender age of four.
Previous anonymous (12:25 a.m.)poster wrote: “I agree wholeheartedly with the posters who take issue with Brandenn’s access to a loaded gun. His parents, who perpetually confused Brandenn’s IQ with emotional maturity, let him down miserably.”They probably didn’t confuse emotional maturity with IQ. He was depressed. His parent’s just didn’t see it and maybe there was nothing to see. Brandenn had a hard act to follow which was his own. Can you imagine how he felt upon learning he wasn’t the musical prodigy that he had been raised to believe he was? Can you imagine how he felt in that community college “intro to biology” class when he didn’t even know how to write a term paper? His high school “diploma” was meaningless and had prepared him for nothing. Unfortunately, this isolated case has cast a negative light on the wonderful University of Nebraska Distance Learning Program which has served the gifted community for years. Add the above to theisolation and normal teenage angst, mix in an accessible gun and you have a dead child. Like ‘luckyduck” wrote on the New Yorker forum I am also astounded and troubled at the meanness displayed by Martin Bremmer, the father, and Linda Silverman, owner of the Gifted Development Center in the article.The “friends” that posted on that forum were equally as cruel with their references to children in the article. The comments are indefensible. Posted here by anonymous(6:37 p.m. entry):“The email, if it was genuine (and there is some discussion about its authenticity, so I can’t be sure), would be a sign, I agree, even if he was trying to be empathic to a friend who was going through a hard time emotionally. But the parents never saw the email, is my understanding.”Where is the discussion about its authenticity? Where was it stated in the article that the e-mail friend was going through a hard time emotionally? You are casting doubt upon the e-mail friend in the article based on what? In the article, the daughter,Dawn, stated the mother, Patti, dismissed the word depression used in the e-mails “as a figure of speech” frequently used in the home, yet anonymous (6:37 p.m. entry)is claiming that “the parent’s never saw the e-mail”.I prefer to believe the daughter Dawn and the integrity of the author as a professional journalist rather than an anonymous poster.
“Getting down to business” said that hangings were the leading cause of suicide. That’s not actually true. Firearms are the leading cause by far. You can get death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control’s WISQARS website. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.htmlIn 2002, there were 31,655 suicides among US residents. 54% were from firearms (17,108); 20% were suffocations, and 17% were poisonings.
I agree that the New Yorker article had a ‘tone’ of disbelief, so it was hard not to see this sad case from Konigsberg’s slant on it. However, the first irksome clue for me came from the (mis)spelling of the child’s name. As if everything he did, like typing an extra ‘n’ was incredibly intelligent. As for the piano playing, it sounds as if he was playing new age music, which (as a professional pianist myself) is NOT that difficult to achieve; just when his teacher was acquainting him with more advanced Music Theory, he didn’t take the instruction well, and lost interest. I have seen resistance like this in my own teaching; it has to do with going deeper into the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of the music, not with the immediate gratification of self-expression…It does seem that he had been subconsciously forced to live up to his parents’ (but really, from the tone of the article, more his mother’s) ideal of his incredible giftedness; her needs do seem to overwhelm him, and he saw no way out for himself, as himself. In my family, an uncle whom I never met committed suicide at age 16. I have been told that he was the ‘hope’ of the family; he was the ‘gifted’ one. I can’t help but draw parallels with Brendenn’s situation, and feel he succumbed to extraordinary pressures.
I cannot join Eustace Google in her dismissal of Middle Americans’ mistrust of journalism in defending Konigsberg. I grew up in Minnesota and have lived in New York as a “liberal elitist” for over 20 years. I don’t, at this point, buy Konigsberg’s account uncritically. I read the piece earlier today and found myself by story’s end very prejudiced against Patti and Martin Bremmer. Later, as I was walking and reflecting on how I was feeling about this sad story, it ocurred to me that something about the story as written simply did not pass the smell test. Konigsberg’s case against the Bremmers seemed utterly convincing. Too convincing. Fortunately, I found this and other threads online discussing the story. I have now read accounts and tributes from friends of Brandenn’s and of the Bremmer’s. I’ve read articles published elsewhere both before and shortly after his death. At this point my prejudice is growing against Konigsberg’s telling of the story. It does not feel to me like a thoroughly reported, objectively written piece of journalism, certainly not up to New Yorker standards. I will keep reading, as clearly this story has touched a collective nerve.
Hi, Big Brother. You sound like a reasonable person, and I’m certainly curious about what accounts specifically led you to doubt Konigsberg’s reporting.Just to be clear, my intention was not to point to Middle Americans in particular when I wrote, “I’m sure people in [the Bremmer family’s] community are feeling exposed and sore, but these are familiar complaints; we all know the polls about how little people trust journalists.” I refer only to the familiar statistics: for instance, the January 13, 2005, Harris poll on American vs. European opinions on media trustworthiness revealed that “a 62 to 22 percent (almost 3-to-1) majority of Americans did not trust ‘the press’; Europeans were split 47 to 46 percent.” As a Middle American transplant to New York myself, I abhor the tendency of those on the coasts to attribute various unattractive qualities to Midwesterners as a group—particularly provincialism and bigotry, which coastal types exude when they indulge in this unthoughtful practice.I haven’t followed every turn of this debate since my initial forays onto the web soon after the story came out, but I haven’t read anything yet that could convince me that Konigsberg’s piece wasn’t a “thoroughly reported, objectively written piece of journalism.” Tell us more about why you think it isn’t, but I can’t see it.
Really, intelligence was not the point. Obviously, Brandenn lacked the capacity to hang low, to hang tight, to let his projects chill while he pursued LIFE. Reading the New Yorker article indicated that he was, in fact, quite immature emotionally and would have benefitted from being WITH other people rather than living besides them, alongside them. I do believe that he must have been depressed and suicidal; I mean, didn’t we all read our schoolbooks that were meant for 6 months within just a couple of days, and didn’t we all think school was some kind of joke? But we still went there for the fun of it, and no one, ever, can play soccer all by himself. This world is far more wicked than can be summed up in any IQ test, and hardly any children’s school really deserves the undivided attention…. undivided attention is for later in life. First we learn how to shout, speak, dance and run - later we learn how to whince, be quiet, sit still and target our movements precisely. And that timing got messed up somehow.
Sadly, as Cyril Connolley wrote: “Whom the Gods would destroy they first make promising.”
Anonymous said,“…Like ‘luckyduck” wrote on the New Yorker forum I am also astounded and troubled at the meanness displayed by Martin Bremmer, the father, and Linda Silverman, owner of the Gifted Development Center in the article.The “friends” that posted on that forum were equally as cruel with their references to children in the article. The comments are indefensibleous…” Hello? The “meanness” displayed by Martin Bremmer!? What on earth are you basing this comment on?And second, the “friends” that posted on the NY forum only referenced ONE CHILD/teenager. Our reference was simply setting the record straight. Cruel? that we defend Brandenn? I hardly think so. Funny how you do NOT find it “cruel” or unscrupulous that this one ‘child’ (that we referenced) jumped at the chance to divulge all kinds of stories to the journalist - with the majority of them being exaggerated and some outright untrue. Is it scrupulous that she (this child) chose to send Brandenn’s personal emails all over the USA (only a few that were valid and the rest fabricated),after he died???? I certaintly don’t think so. That behavior comes closer to being “cruel”. (And just for the record, she is old enough to know better) We ‘true’ friends choose to stay loyal to Brandenn - and to the REAL story of his life. Of all Brandenn’s local friends that spoke to Konigsberg(the reporter), their recent and true accounts of Brandenn were not mentioned at all, maybe because they did not ‘fit’ with Konigsberg’s TWIST. {It seems so strange that most of these posts conclude that all the reports they have read are the solid truth,that seems so naive - from my perspective, I know for a fact they are not.}
Dear Wethree,You seem a bit upset at this forum. However you never stated what you said that was repressed by Konigsberg. What did the New Yorker article leave out? I gather that you are mad at the girl “k” Brendenn was friends with. Is that the extent of Konigsberg’s repression or did he completely leave out essential elements of the story? I think these answers would help everyone in the forum get a fuller picture of the Bremmers.HelenHelen
Helen,You asked:“…What did the New Yorker article leave out? I gather that you are mad at the girl “k” Brendenn was friends with. Is that the extent of Konigsberg’s repression or did he completely leave out essential elements of the story?”First,We are not ‘mad’ at the girl “k”, More accurately put - we are dissapointed in her unscrupulous actions and behavior with the press. Please keep in mind, she only met him ONCE in her whole life and their correspondence was almost ‘nil’ compared to his interactions and friendships with many others. (Maybe that’s why it was so easy for her to exaggerate and fabricate…)Second, Yes, Konigsberg DID leave out essential elements - AND he painted a very biased picture of Brandenn’s life.My opinion is that Konigsberg took just a very few of his interviews, combined them with his own opinions and wrote the story he wanted - regardless of it’s accuracy.In a nutshell, Brandenn’s family are easy-going, loving people.I wonder, just how some of you would view this subject if it were to hit ‘in your own backyard’… I bet your comments would change drastically.Suicide shows it’s ugly face in all streams of society, all over the world, all age groups, under many different circumstance. Don’t be so quick to judge. (especially if you are basing your comments on media coverage.)
Hello, “wethree”. I am luckyduck. I am the one who posted to the New Yorker forum. I happen to know “K” in person, the girl you mention in your musings here on this blog. She is not the person you allege her to be. She is a solid, honest and brave girl who cared very much for a friend in distress, and who wanted to help in any way she could. Contrary to the unfounded allegations you are slinging, she has not, and absolutely would not send private emails “all over the country”. She was asked by a reporter to tell her story, and she did. She told the truth. There are ways to prove if emails have been fabricated, as you say she did, and I will bet dollars to donuts that “K” would be willing to put those emails to the test. Brandenn Bremmer is a dead child, but “K” is a living one, and a very gifted and sensitive one at that. It is the responsibility of ALL of us to learn the lessons we can from tragedies like this one (yours, too, by the way), and protect the ones who are still alive, especially the good kids like “K” who knew Brandenn and wanted to help from a distance. You also write about suicide, and how one shouldn’t be so quick to judge. True, but neither should one be accepting of the story that Brandenn died as some sort of heroic gesture so others could live. It is a dangerous message to send into the world, when terrorists are committing suicide every day under the same guise of heroism. I also happen to know the Bremmers, albeit periferally. I know that they did the best they probably could, that they seemed to love their son, and that he was the center of their world. The quotes in the article rang true for me, as they did for many others who know the Bremmers as I do. No one I know would blame grieving parents, as I am sure (or at least would imagine)that they are probably doing enough of that for themselves given how involved they were in Brandenn’s life. However, Mr. Bremmer made some pretty strong and unkind statements about other gifted children in the article, and that concerned me greatly. Grief is allowed, but in my estimation criticism of someone else’s child is not. They are children, after all, just as Brandenn was, just as “K” is, just as the other child in the article, “Duncan” is as well. They are children, and they all deserve our consideration. But Brandenn’s life deserves a second glance — not because he was gifted or special or outstanding, but because he is now a statistic for two special groups: teen suicide and gun related death.
‘Lucky Duck’, Please keep in mind that this forum is not about the girl “K”,- We only referenced her because she is one of the very few that Konigsberg based his narrow and questionable story on and the fact that ‘some’ of the sources he used knew Brandenn ONLY BREIFLY, INCLUDING “K”, who only met him ONCE. You failed to comment on that.You stated…” Brandenn Bremmer is a dead child, but “K” is a living one, and a very gifted and sensitive one at that… “MY comment to that:That sounds rather cold…doesn’t Brandenn still deserve respect and truthfulness when we are reflecting and commenting on his life? That includes when we speak to the press… You said:“…and protect the ones who are still alive, especially the good kids like “K” who knew Brandenn and wanted to help from a distance…”My comment to that:You say protect those that are still alive, especially the good kids!?? (sounds like an elite and narrow-minded comment)Hmm, I kinda think ALL people deserve love, support and help to avoid the devastation of suicide. None more than others. You said: “…You also write about suicide, and how one shouldn’t be so quick to judge. True, but neither should one be accepting of the story that Brandenn died as some sort of heroic gesture so others could live.” My comment to that:We have NEVER posted or stated that any of us thought it was a “heroic gesture”. Please get your facts straight. You said:“…It is a dangerous message to send into the world, when terrorists are committing suicide every day under the same guise of heroism…” My comment:Are you seriously trying to compare our comments to terrorism?!Not worth my comments at all…You said:“I also happen to know the Bremmers, albeit periferally…”My final comment:“albeit periferally”“Knowing” someone pe·riph’er·al·lycould hardly qualify as truly KNOWING a person. Just because I’ve ‘met’ President Bush and have heard and read a lot about him, could I also claim to know him?
“wethree “wrote:Hello? The “meanness” displayed by Martin Bremmer!? What on earth are you basing this comment on?From the New Yorker article : —but say that a high IQ is the only thing that Brandenn had in common with many of the kids. ” A lot of them were stereo typical gifted kids , with emotional deficiencies , manipulating their parents like a trainer would be leading a horse, Martin told me. . “some of the kids had real frailities—they wouldn’t let different foods on a plate touch each other. One kid had a rat tail down his back—hair that was ten years old. He said to cut it would be like cutting off a part of him.” It frustrated Brandenn to be around kids like these, Martin recalled. “Brandenn wasn’t a geek , he wasn’t overweight, he wasn’t pimply-faced.”These are very mean comments about other children. I cannot imagine losing a child but if I did I would pray to God that the above words not enter my head nor cross my lips. Wethree, I must concur with the poster Helen. You seem very angry with “K”.“wethree” wroteOur reference was simply setting the record straight. Cruel? that we defend Brandenn? I hardly think so. Funny how you do NOT find it “cruel” or unscrupulous that this one ‘child’ (that we referenced) jumped at the chance to divulge all kinds “of stories to the journalist - with the majority of them being exaggerated and some outright untrue. Is it scrupulous that she (this child) chose to send Brandenn’s personal emails all over the USA (only a few that were valid and the rest fabricated),after he died???? I certaintly don’t think so. That behavior comes closer to being “cruel”. (And just for the record, she is old enough to know better)I went back and re-read the article and parsed out the following. According to “K”: “Brandenn was a true gentleman.” According to “K” : “He wasn’t just a musician -he was a performer” and she was nervous being around him. According to “K” when Brandenn said he was feeling down about everything she told the reporter “what teenager doesn’t go through unhappiness, you know?” “I told him to talk to his parent’s. He said “Yeah,I’ll think about it” According to “K” they weren’t quite boyfriend and girlfriend, though she wasn’t sure how to characterize the relationship.” According to “K” Brandenn sent her jewelry on Valentine’s Day and her birthday. According to “K” she spent 3 hours picking out wool for a scarf she made him for Christmas. According to “K” he asked her to dance. According to “K” they made plans to keep in touch and reconvene next summer” According to “K” she helped Brandenn carry his bags to his parent’s car and told him “You owe me a dance” According to “K’” she talked to Brandenn with “intermittent bursts through the fall and winter. “There was probably a month when he called me every night,” she said. “It always sounded like he was hiding, going outside the house to make calls or only calling when his parent’s weren’t there.” According to “K” “he hoped to move to New York for medical school. “I want to go to school where there are people. According to “K” they were counting the day’s until the summer retreat “He said he wanted to be there but his parent’s might have something else for him this years.”Please comment on the above and tell us which of the above is exaggerated or outright untrue and/or falls under the category of “cruel” and unscrupulous ? Please set the record straight and explain how Brandenn needs a defense against the above statements. It reads like “K” and Brandenn had a pleasant friendship . I read nowhere in the article about emails being sent all over the USA. How do you know this? Do you know where they were sent and to whom? Which emails were fabricated and again how do you know this? Honestly I see no basis for your observations. “Wethree” wrote:Of all Brandenn’s local friends that spoke to Konigsberg(the reporter), their recent and true accounts of Brandenn were not mentioned at all, maybe because they did not ‘fit’ with Konigsberg’s TWIST.To quote this blog’s owner:“I haven’t followed every turn of this debate since my initial forays onto the web soon after the story came out, but I haven’t read anything yet that could convince me that Konigsberg’s piece wasn’t a “thoroughly reported, objectively written piece of journalism.”
Hello again, “wethree” — I found the things you chose to respond to in your last post very interesting. Of course my spelling was incorrect of the word “peripherally” — thank you for pointing that out. But of course, as I will remind you, that’s not what this forum is about. And of course ALL children deserve love and kindness, not just the “good” ones. I in no way intended for my comments to imply an sort of “elitism”. The simple fact is this: the children who were quoted in the article are not the enemy: THERE IS NO ENEMY HERE (most especially not a girl named “K” who did nothing but tell the truth). All there is is a dead child who took his own life, and many, many people asking “How did this happen, and how can we learn from this so it doens’t happen again?” That is healthy and productive, in my opinion.An anonymous blogger wrote “The more I stewed over this article, the more sure I was that the mother is what is termed a marginal personality”. More than one person has mirrored that thought, enough times that I felt it important enough to repeat it again. None of us will ever know what happened inside Brandenn Bremmer before he died, and no matter how well she says she knew him not even his mother can know. But we CAN look at the symptoms he may have exhibited, and listen to his own words in the emails he sent to friends, and learn enough so that a “next time” doesn’t happen to any child. And THAT’S how Brandenn’s life can be of value to all of us. That’s not such a bad legacy or memory to leave the rest of us — in fact, what a tremendous gift. — Lucky Duck
Eustace Google said:“…every turn of this debate since my initial forays onto the web soon after the story came out, but I haven’t read anything yet…” Anonymous said… “I went back and re-read the article and parsed out the following…”Anonymous said… “…I read nowhere in the article about emails being sent all over the USA. How do you know this?”and“…It reads like “K” and Brandenn had a pleasant friendship…”and another anonymous said… “The more I stewed over this article…”Do any of you readers notice one common factor in all the above statements? Almost all of you are basing your opinions on written articles and on the press/media coverage.And I am sure that we are all wise enough to know that one can never validate information using the general mass media as the source.However,We KNOW Brandenn…we talked together, we ate together, we watched movies, played games, shopped together, cooked together, went for rides, went on short road trips together, exchanged gifts, shared stories together, wrote letters, shared holiday celebrations…etc.That is how we know that most of the information printed is not accurate.(we also know about the ‘unscrupulous’ gossip and emails by “k” and others, after Brandenn’s death, because we share some common acquaintances.)Ok,One final note:Anonymous said,””…Like ‘luckyduck’ wrote on the New Yorker forum I am also astounded and troubled at the meanness displayed by Martin Bremmer, the father, and Linda Silverman, owner of the Gifted Development Center in the article.”“Last, But certainly not least, there is not ONE mean bone in Martin Bremmer, Nor Patti.And having met Mr. Silverman, same holds true…he is a peaceful, kind man and from what I know of his wife Linda, ditto that.We are not claiming any enemies here - only standing up against the ACTIONS of others (circulating false info and gossiping), not them personally.So, again, I agree - the story should stick to the issue of suicide, and not personal attacks on people.Comments and statements should be based on facts,But-I guess I have to keep in mind that this forum and the NY forum, for the most part, are based on opinions and speculation. And maybe that’s all they can be.
Wethree, you need to re-read what you wrote, because you are speaking in a double standard here. You wrote “we also know about the ‘unscrupulous’ gossip and emails by “k” and others, after Brandenn’s death, because we share some common acquaintances”. And then you wrote this: “I guess I have to keep in mind that this forum and the NY forum, for the most part, are based on opinions and speculation. And maybe that’s all they can be”. You seem to exclude yourself from the group you identify as putting forth “opinions and speculation”. Your statements are nothing but the same, except that you cross the line into slander of “K” all the while presenting them as “the one truth”. No one is harming Brandenn’s memory here by discussing the fact that he might just have been depressed and he might just have been adept at hiding it, and his parents might just have completely missed it. Since I had the pleasure of knowing him (peripherally) I can state that he really was a great kid. BUT, “K” is a great kid, too. She is not a liar, she is not troubled (nor does she suffer from depression), and you have done nothing but attempt to smear her name (even though it’s only an initial to the general public) since the moment you started to write in these forums. Saying Brandenn was depressed as a possible reason for his suicide is not soiling his memory, unless you are one who is attempting to promote the idea that he was the “second coming”, or some sort of “angel”. But saying what you do about “K” is slander and gossip — that which you accuse others of doing, and thus the double standard. I just about fell off my chair when I read this next thing you wrote: “So, again, I agree - the story should stick to the issue of suicide, and not personal attacks on people.” You should absolutely take this advice. Nowhere have I read “personal attacks” from any forum participant, here or elsewhere, excepting your very personal attacks on the girl “K”. Additionally, the story DID discuss suicide, but Brandenn’s family absolutely refused to accept that depression might have been a factor in his death. Their need to preserve a perfect memory became the focus because they insisted on it, not because Mr. Konigsburg skewed it in some way. I believe that the Bremmers (and/or you, as it were) need to invalidate “K” because to acknowledge that the emails she received from Brandenn are his truth means to acknowledge that he was, in fact, merely human, and no matter how very special a human being he was, he was just like the rest of us in more ways than he was “special”. And that’s why it’s important to figure out why he died: so the rest of us try hard to not let it happen again.I also feel it necessary to say that it sounds like particularly sour grapes, after the fact of the published article, to blame the reporter for things you feel should not have been published. Mr. Konigsburg does not appear to me to be Fox News, or the Christian Broadcasting Network — he really seemed to portray the “players” in this Shakespearian drama as they presented themselves. He let the story unfold, and told it not as he interpreted it, but with the words of the people he interviewed, and with Brandenn’s words themselves. —Luckyduck
wethree wrote:“Do any of you readers notice one common factor in all the above statements?Almost all of you are basing your opinions on written articles and on the press/media coverage.And I am sure that we are all wise enough to know that one can never validate information using the general mass media as the source.”This forum is for discussing New Yorker articles. The New Yorker is a well respected magazine with editors and fact checkers. Since you brought up the media and articles in plural I would like to add that it has been noted by other posters that Mr. Konigsberg’s article is quite consistent with the years and years of other press coverage surrounding the Bremmers and Silverman. This is not an isolated article. Mr. Konigsberg put his reputation and career behind this article. He does not have the luxury of “hiding” under a moniker of “wethree” or “anonymous” as we do. I also do not believe his editors and the publications attorney’s would risk a libel /slander suit if Mr Konigsberg could not document his story. “wethree” wrote:We KNOW Brandenn…we talked together, we ate together, we watched movies, played games, shopped together, cooked together, went for rides, went on short road trips together, exchanged gifts, shared stories together, wrote letters, shared holiday celebrations…etc.That is how we know that most of the information printed is not accurate.What information “wethree”? You keep throwing out statements like “most of the information printed is not accurate” with no substance. Are you saying because you KNEW Brandenn and YOU didn’t see any signs of depression that the depression (and it’s possible link to the suicide) did not exist? You obviously do not remember being a teenager yourself .Teenagers share their deepest inner thoughts (developmentally appropriate) with their “chosen” friends. It is developmentally appropriate that teens shift their emotional dependence on mom and dad and family friends to friends of their own choosing. It is healthy. This is not to diminish you special friendship with Brandenn but merely to point out that your friendship may not have warranted the level of intimacy that he apparently shared with Duncan and “K”. Does the obvious fact that Brandenn did not share with you, his deepest inner feelings give you and your friends the right to slander another human being (“K”), a child, who has only said nice things about Brandenn (see my entry above 9:17 p.m.) and nothing negative about the family or family friends? Does it truly make you feel better ? Does it really help to heal your pain to attack “K”? There are better and healthier ways to vent and cope with your obvious deep grief and perhaps the time has come to seek professional counseling. Suicide leaves a lot of unwilling victims in it’s wake and it’s not a sign of weakness to seek help in coping with the aftermath. I’m sure even out where you live there are mental health crisis counselors. Your county mental health department should have referrals available if you don’t already have a doctor with whom you are working.
My son attended a summer camp when he was 15 and struck up a close friendship with a girl there. They spent a lot of time instant messaging and emailing each other throughout the fall. She emailed him that she was depressed, and he didn’t take it seriously. She killed herself shortly thereafter. He’s still haunted by those emails. After her death, he told me about their communications and asked what he should do. My advice was to contact the family and ask if they’d want to receive the emails. They were very grateful to have gotten some insight into the cause of her death, even though it was very painful for them to find out she had poured out her heart to someone they didn’t even know existed.Surely the girl ‘K.’ suffered in a similar way. Her mother’s advice couldn’t have been similar to mine because she had previously tried to communicate with the Bremmers, according to the New Yorker article, and was shut out. So ‘K.’ couldn’t give the family the emails, but in her shoes, I’d surely feel that information needed to be shared to shed light on Brandenn’s death.I cannot fathom how anyone could label this unscrupulous behavior. Having received those emails from the Bremmer boy, and then learning of his suicide, must have been devastating for the poor girl.
Once again, “Anonymous” one and two have chosen to redirect the forum in the direction of their “K”. We have already stated over and over again that it is the actions of “K” and her stories to the press that we disagree with,not her personally.You seem to have more of a ‘hangup’ protecting “K” (when it is not even necessary)than of contributing any real thoughts to this forum.The ‘over all’ statements we have made, in a nutshell, were: asking readers to please keep in mind that ‘you can’t always believe everything that you read’…andthat the Bremmers are good people and that they have been unfairly portrayed, along with the Silvermans.andthat people should stop all the speculating and gossip and finger pointing,Period. And your other comments/speculations are wrong again -Yes, Brandenn DID speak quite intimately with us, including conversations about his other friends…(and the conferences he attended ,including the one where “K” met Brandenn…). But to expand on all this would be a breech in his trust/friendship (we chose to honor this when Brandenn was here with us, and we will continue even now that he is gone.)And, by the way, we are also aquainted with “Duncan” and have sat and eaten lunch with Brandenn and “Duncan”. We talked about many things, again, including the various conferences that were attended…Oh, andAbout the journalist, ‘LUCKYDUCK’ wrote:””“I also feel it necessary to say that it sounds like particularly sour grapes, after the fact of the published article, to blame the reporter for things you feel should not have been published. Mr. Konigsburg does not appear to me to be Fox News, or the Christian Broadcasting Network — he really seemed to portray the “players” in this Shakespearian drama as they presented themselves. He let the story unfold, and told it not as he interpreted it, but with the words of the people he interviewed, and with Brandenn’s words themselves.”“”We met with Mr. Konigsberg on several occasions. Have you?Luckyduck,Shakespearian drama ?? THAT is what you are comparing Brandenn’s story to? Well, true, that version of the story ‘SELLS’ better — and that is precisely the reason Mr. Konigsberg chose to write it that way. He wanted to (and apparently you, too) create a “Shakespearian” stage, because the real story did not involve enough so-called ‘drama’ for him to write and sell.Maybe the fact that Mr.Konigsberg was from eastern NE originally,and saw some ‘key words’ in the original newspaper articles, like ‘suicide’, ‘homeschooled’,‘gifted’ and so on…. He decided that might be the makings of his next ‘story’.(I have two close family members in the field of journalism and I know how it goes)If the ‘real’ story were written, it would not even come close to a “Shakespearian drama” - as you have chosen to call it.All in all, it is simply a very sad, incomprehensible occurrence of another fine human being who chose death rather than life. Teenage suicide, unfortunately occurs every single day around the world…The reasons for suicide are numerous and apparently vary from person to person. It has never been completely understood and probably never will be.Most never even get mentioned by the press. Sadly, Brandenn’s death has been continually scrutinized, analyzed, picked apart, and speculated on.If one can tell his story in a truthful light,the way it really was, in the way that it might bring better understanding of ‘teen suicide’, then by all means, let his real story be told…
Would you please elucidate the thoughts you’ve contributed to this forum? I find none. I find only scathing criticisms of everyone except the Bremmer family. Maybe you should have advised them to not court publicity to the extent they did, and then you wouldn’t find the public discourse so painful.
I’m pleased that I can provide a forum for this debate. Keep it going, without too much name-calling, if possible. I wish you anonymice would choose unique usernames, though—it gets confusing! You can type in any made-up email address or URL you want if you really want to be untraceable.Wethree quotes an observation of mine to illustrate the point that many of the commenters on the Konigsberg story have relied on the written word rather than on personal knowledge of the family. I wrote, “I haven’t followed every turn of this debate since my initial forays onto the web soon after the story came out, but I haven’t read anything yet that could convince me that Konigsberg’s piece wasn’t a ‘thoroughly reported, objectively written piece of journalism.’ ” Wethree disputes my frame of reference; I didn’t know the Bremmers, of course, so I must rely on what I read and hear to form my own opinion of the story. I honor the opinions of people who knew Brandenn and the Bremmer family. At the same time, I also know that The New Yorker strives to do far better than “the mass media”—TV, newspapers without research departments, unfiltered radio and cable and Web rants—in avoiding error, bias, and hearsay. I applaud and enjoy the existence of all the above media, but I read The New Yorker and the few other magazines in its class with deep and long-held trust that its editors, publishers, reporters, and checkers do everything in their power to tell the story fairly and truthfully, as well as sensitively and intelligently. There are very few publications with such a high standard of reporting, editing, and fact-checking. (And that said, not fact-checking is created equal.) Konigsberg is a good and honest writer who strived to tell the Bremmers’ story fairly, and I repeat that I still haven’t read, heard, or seen anything to convince me otherwise. If we—those outside the inner circle—relied solely on the opinions of relatives and friends of the subject of every news story, gossip item, obituary, or magazine profile, I’m not sure we would ever get a picture of a scenario that made any sense from a wide-angle point of view, which we need alongside the deep focus we all live in every day. I would never say that personal, subjective, deeply felt side of any story is unimportant. Quite the contrary. That’s what memoirs are for, and documentaries, and conversations with friends, and poems and personal essays, and letters to the editor, and daytime talk shows—and, I suppose, lawsuits, if that’s the only route you know to take. The death of someone close to us is a jarring, catastrophic thing, and it defies logic no matter what the circumstances. It makes perfect sense to want to blame someone for the death of a bright teenager—or anyone else, really. Still, no matter which of the decisions represented in the piece one or another of us might disagree with, there’s no obvious villain in this story, and Koningsberg does not name or even imply one. In a relatively short profile, it is impossible to pin down the complete story of such an event (look how much longer “In Cold Blood” is! and that too is, necessarily, incomplete), even if that story wants to reveal itself. And in this case, I agree—so far, it hasn’t entirely done that.That said, it’s not a very good reason to make Konigsberg the villain, or The New Yorker, or the media, or Nebraska, or homeschooling, or the blogosphere, or K (who seems like a very ordinary, appropriately concerned friend). Why not go the old-fashioned route and blame death, the most ruthless terrorist of all and one we can never capture or make recant? I take that back—let’s hate depression, too. (I personally also hate guns, but in my mind they’re connected in a fundamental way to both of the above.) Clearly a lot of people have Brandenn Bremmer on their minds, and I don’t think anyone who knew him will ever really not be thinking of and missing him. But don’t use this to fan the flames against careful and principled reporting; precarious as journalism must be given that interview subjects and writers are usually humans, it’s still far too precious a thing to shoot down.
“wethree”, I can tell from your writing that you are distressed. I will address only a few points here so as to not distress you further. In regard to my using the term “Shakespearian drama”, I am in no way attempting to diminish Brandenn’s life by describing this whole story this way. Rather I felt that this was an appropriate way to describe his death and the people surrounding it: to me, it has all the elements of Shakespeare, especially the tragic piece. It is a sad and tragic story. It is one for which MANY people seek answers. It is my opinion that Mr. Konigsburg’s story was well reported, kind to all parties, and told the story from all different views. That is reporting at its best (in my opinion).In regard to my discussing “K”, I’m really not clear what you are arguing with here — the reason I have written about her is purely in response to what you have peppered your writing with: careless, unfounded accusations, my responses to which you continuously refuse to specifically address except to express confusion about why she is being discussed. She is being discussed because YOU brought her up. If she made these emails up, prove it (because until you can, you are only passing on what you label as “gossip” and rumors); if she is lying in any way, prove it. Otherwise, what you are doing is called slander. This is a young girl who is still walking around, is tuned in (to this story in particular) JUST LIKE YOU, and who has been hurt by the loss of her friend JUST LIKE YOU.Your loss is a very tragic and sad one and my heart goes out to you. Truly. I am sorry you are so deeply grieving. It must be very painful for you. I would second what the other Anonymous said: there are counselors specially trained to help you through the grief process, and I encourage you to find someone in your area to give you some support.Brandenn’s death occurred nearly a year ago. For those who knew him, and were directly touched by both his life and his death, the shock is only just beginning to wear off. It is my wish for every single one of them that they find the support, kindness and peace they need to pick up and continue their journies through life. Including and especially you, “wethree”. — luckyduck
Has anyone read Paul Rudnick’s spoof about ‘Dandelion’ children in last week’s New Yorker? I hope the author doesn’t get sued—he really captures the inanity of the whole Indigo Children ruckus.
Late to the party, but I just read the article and found the discussion and felt I had to add my $0.02.Of course he was depressed! He committed suicide! Arguing if he was depressed or not is like arguing if a drowning victim died of being submerged in water.
We have much to learn in regard to life, death, and the psychology that surrounds human behavior. Many of these posts are sad to see still floating around the internet today. They are opinions of those with rather limited knowledge in regard to who Brandenn was and how he was raised. Deciding what is right and wrong soley based on the norms in our culture today lacks certain perspective. In this life one may never understand but in lives to come there will be clarity. He was my little brother and for that, I will forever be greatful. It was fourteen remarkable years of learning, love, and laughter that only those closest to him can possibly understand!
Note: This post has been attracting spam, so I’ve closed the comments, but if you have a comment you’d like to add, please e-mail it to me (see “contact us” in the green footer below). Thanks for contributing to this fascinating discussion!