Sometimes love will catch us by complete surprise, euphoria
will instantly set in, and sometimes love will even frighten us by how brightly
it burns. Leah Murray has written a powerful memoir, Romancing the Buzzard (Quattro Books, 2012), which begins with an amazing,
all-encompassing love story that quickly sours, instantly turning into a destructive
mind-blowing horror story.
After meeting veteran improv comic, Tony Rosato, best known for his work withToronto ’s
Second City Murray
becomes captivated by Rosato’s charisma and humour. She thinks he is the
perfect gentleman and their relationship blossomes very quickly. She felt it so
easy to believe in him, but at the same time Rosato believed, in his gift, his
gift to communicate with angels and evil spirits he thought he was envisioning. He
also believed that astral attackers were trying to kill him, claiming they were feeding
off the deviance and ugliness of Murray ’s
soul. Romancing the Buzzard is a turbulent tale of mental illness and domestic abuse.
Later, during Rosato’s trial, he is convincedMurray
has been replaced by a duplicate, and her only chance for survival is to
escape. Murray had indeed escaped, with the help of her mother, to a women’s
shelter in Kingston, Ontario, with her newborn daughter in tow.
Murray was born in Chilliwack ,
British Columbia Murray
has travelled across Canada ,
Europe and the USA .
She then settled in Kingston ,
attended Queen’s University, where she earned a BA in English Language and
Literature. She took a creative writing course taught by Carolyn Smart, whom
she credits for igniting her love for writing.
The following two poems from Romancing the Buzzard best describe the good, bad and ugly aspects of a love affair filled with naivety, obsession, delusion, abuse and mental illness.
him, preparing meals for me
he makes sandwiches
with peanut butter and jam
and honey this for more sweetness
he cooks spaghetti sauce
with whole cloves of roasted garlic
like this is all that matters
and then there are chicken legs
dripping in hot sauce
entire lives leading to just this
my favourite is salad
I love to watch him
pouring oil and vinegar
he mixes these with the lettuce
without utensils
only his hands
I will think about this with each bite
Issac Newton Falls in Love
Despite being twenty-two years older, he falls in love with me
immediately. Falls endlessly in a circle like an orbiting satellite.
His heart does rolling dives.
Constellations rise and fall, he keeps his age hidden from me
for as long as he can, the planets only seem to wander. Locked
in an embrace, two galaxies will collide.
He insists that I do not have much contact with my mother
and father and three brothers. Stars swarm like bees to the
most violent places in the cosmos, where my understanding of
the laws of physics stops.
This is because he has met my family, and he is convinced they
have secrets. Secrets they need to bring out into the open.
Unrelenting, I am bent and curved out of shape by his every
moon and sun.
He believes they are hiding years of sexual abuse, and he wants
them to admit it. He that gouges out vast canyons, he that
shapes continents, he that sculpts beacons in me will eventually
crush me.
But there is no basis in reality for his belief. He is completely
wrong, and my family is very upset.
The gravity of this scares me. And still, this is where I want to
be: the border of the known and the unknown, end of the
universe.
TTQ - Why did you decide to write about such a turbulent time in your life, and how difficult was the process of drawing on such an emotional time that many people would sooner forget about rather than write about it?
Leah Murray – It’s a story that needed to be told. It’s dark and it’s dangerous, but there’s beauty to it, magic, and poetry. It’s true I had to dredge up the blackest muck from the bottom of the ocean, but I looked at the stars just as much. I didn’t find it difficult to draw on this emotional time during the writing process. It was cathartic and liberating. I was finally getting my say.
TTQ – How did the title for the book, Romancing the Buzzard, come about?
Leah Murray – It comes from the punch line of a Sufi joke where there’s a lovesick rooster lying on the ground, with a buzzard circling overhead. The farmer thinks he’s dead and starts to come over. The rooster opens one eye and says, “Sh, when you’re romancing a buzzard, you have to play it their way.”
After meeting veteran improv comic, Tony Rosato, best known for his work with
Later, during Rosato’s trial, he is convinced
The following two poems from Romancing the Buzzard best describe the good, bad and ugly aspects of a love affair filled with naivety, obsession, delusion, abuse and mental illness.
him, preparing meals for me
he makes sandwiches
with peanut butter and jam
and honey this for more sweetness
he cooks spaghetti sauce
with whole cloves of roasted garlic
like this is all that matters
and then there are chicken legs
dripping in hot sauce
entire lives leading to just this
my favourite is salad
I love to watch him
pouring oil and vinegar
he mixes these with the lettuce
without utensils
only his hands
I will think about this with each bite
Issac Newton Falls in Love
Despite being twenty-two years older, he falls in love with me
immediately. Falls endlessly in a circle like an orbiting satellite.
His heart does rolling dives.
Constellations rise and fall, he keeps his age hidden from me
for as long as he can, the planets only seem to wander. Locked
in an embrace, two galaxies will collide.
He insists that I do not have much contact with my mother
and father and three brothers. Stars swarm like bees to the
most violent places in the cosmos, where my understanding of
the laws of physics stops.
This is because he has met my family, and he is convinced they
have secrets. Secrets they need to bring out into the open.
Unrelenting, I am bent and curved out of shape by his every
moon and sun.
He believes they are hiding years of sexual abuse, and he wants
them to admit it. He that gouges out vast canyons, he that
shapes continents, he that sculpts beacons in me will eventually
crush me.
But there is no basis in reality for his belief. He is completely
wrong, and my family is very upset.
The gravity of this scares me. And still, this is where I want to
be: the border of the known and the unknown, end of the
universe.
TTQ - Why did you decide to write about such a turbulent time in your life, and how difficult was the process of drawing on such an emotional time that many people would sooner forget about rather than write about it?
Leah Murray – It’s a story that needed to be told. It’s dark and it’s dangerous, but there’s beauty to it, magic, and poetry. It’s true I had to dredge up the blackest muck from the bottom of the ocean, but I looked at the stars just as much. I didn’t find it difficult to draw on this emotional time during the writing process. It was cathartic and liberating. I was finally getting my say.
TTQ – How did the title for the book, Romancing the Buzzard, come about?
Leah Murray – It comes from the punch line of a Sufi joke where there’s a lovesick rooster lying on the ground, with a buzzard circling overhead. The farmer thinks he’s dead and starts to come over. The rooster opens one eye and says, “Sh, when you’re romancing a buzzard, you have to play it their way.”
“Romancing
the buzzard” means flirting with death. That’s what the rooster was doing, and,
to a certain extent, that’s what I was doing. Being with Tony was like walking
on the knife-edge of danger. I often felt a cold, hard, fear-induced adrenalin.
TTQ – Before we begin to discuss the events that take place in the book, talk a bit about the decision of how you would format the book. It's not structured as a typical novel, instead you have pieced together bits of poetry, short stories, and court documents. How did that all come about?
Leah Murray – I wanted to be completely unfettered. I took whatever memory I had chosen to write about in whatever direction it wanted to go. In fact, my book is pieced together much like the human mind remembers things, in fragments, like patchwork; memories and thoughts are never straightforward. They’re jumbled up with music, overheard conversations, old TV shows, the news, and so on.
TTQ – Before we begin to discuss the events that take place in the book, talk a bit about the decision of how you would format the book. It's not structured as a typical novel, instead you have pieced together bits of poetry, short stories, and court documents. How did that all come about?
Leah Murray – I wanted to be completely unfettered. I took whatever memory I had chosen to write about in whatever direction it wanted to go. In fact, my book is pieced together much like the human mind remembers things, in fragments, like patchwork; memories and thoughts are never straightforward. They’re jumbled up with music, overheard conversations, old TV shows, the news, and so on.
I
also wanted to be out-of-the-ordinary and eye-catching. Not page after page of
straight text.
TTQ – How did you meet your husband and would you describe your first meeting or series of dates as being 'love at first sight'? What was he like at the beginning of your relationship?
Leah Murray – I met Tony inToronto Second City
TTQ – At what point did things start to change in the relationship in a negative way and when did you notice a change in your husband’s personality?
Leah Murray – Things started to change in a negative way almost right away, but they were so subtle, I didn’t really notice them, or they were done in such a manipulative way as to make me feel as though he was just looking out for my best interests. For example, “cleansing” my photo albums of certain photos he didn’t like, getting rid of certain books and CDs he didn’t think were good enough – that was supposed to help improve my tastes, make me a better person. I thought to myself: well, he’s older and wiser, he loves me and cares about me, and I don’t want to upset him, what’s the harm in doing what he says? It was easy to get confused and miss that red flag that said: hey, this guy is trying to control you.
TTQ – Why do you think you were so willing to allow him to control you in that way?
Leah Murray – As I said, he began controlling and manipulating me very subtly, in ways designed to confuse me and make me compliant, ways I later learned are textbook domestic abuser techniques. But by the time it came around to him destroying my clothing, and him forbidding me from seeing my friends and family, his demons had really come out, and I went along with those things not because I was willing, but because I was terrified of his anger if I didn’t comply.
TTQ – You describe your husband in the book as having paranoid and delusional tendencies, hearing voices, having symptoms of mental disease (schizophrenia) pretty much from the outset of your relationship. Did your fear prevent you from reaching out to get him some help when he first showed signs of mental illness or did you think he simply would do harm to you had you tried? Why didn't you simply leave when things started to go awry?
Leah Murray – When I first met Tony, I thought he was a passionate artist. A bit later on I discovered he was an eccentric type of guy, and into New Age spirituality. He didn’t tell me he was hearing voices. He said he communicated with Archangel Michael. I thought he meant it in the same way a religious person communicates with God – through prayer, or in their heart. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was having actual conversations with Archangel Michael and other astral beings, and that these conversations could get very, very dark.
TTQ – How did you meet your husband and would you describe your first meeting or series of dates as being 'love at first sight'? What was he like at the beginning of your relationship?
Leah Murray – I met Tony in
TTQ – At what point did things start to change in the relationship in a negative way and when did you notice a change in your husband’s personality?
Leah Murray – Things started to change in a negative way almost right away, but they were so subtle, I didn’t really notice them, or they were done in such a manipulative way as to make me feel as though he was just looking out for my best interests. For example, “cleansing” my photo albums of certain photos he didn’t like, getting rid of certain books and CDs he didn’t think were good enough – that was supposed to help improve my tastes, make me a better person. I thought to myself: well, he’s older and wiser, he loves me and cares about me, and I don’t want to upset him, what’s the harm in doing what he says? It was easy to get confused and miss that red flag that said: hey, this guy is trying to control you.
TTQ – Why do you think you were so willing to allow him to control you in that way?
Leah Murray – As I said, he began controlling and manipulating me very subtly, in ways designed to confuse me and make me compliant, ways I later learned are textbook domestic abuser techniques. But by the time it came around to him destroying my clothing, and him forbidding me from seeing my friends and family, his demons had really come out, and I went along with those things not because I was willing, but because I was terrified of his anger if I didn’t comply.
TTQ – You describe your husband in the book as having paranoid and delusional tendencies, hearing voices, having symptoms of mental disease (schizophrenia) pretty much from the outset of your relationship. Did your fear prevent you from reaching out to get him some help when he first showed signs of mental illness or did you think he simply would do harm to you had you tried? Why didn't you simply leave when things started to go awry?
Leah Murray – When I first met Tony, I thought he was a passionate artist. A bit later on I discovered he was an eccentric type of guy, and into New Age spirituality. He didn’t tell me he was hearing voices. He said he communicated with Archangel Michael. I thought he meant it in the same way a religious person communicates with God – through prayer, or in their heart. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was having actual conversations with Archangel Michael and other astral beings, and that these conversations could get very, very dark.
I tried
to get him help. But he refused to see a doctor. I’ll never forget the first
time I tried to tell him he was mentally ill. He was so furious with me. He
said I was the one who was mentally
ill for saying such a terrible thing. He became paranoid that I had joined the
dark side. He threatened to have me committed to an institution, and my baby
taken away from me after she was born.
Why
didn’t I simply leave when things started to go awry? There was nothing simple
about it. In situations of domestic abuse, the victim is under the control of
the perpetrator. She has basically been blindsided by this huge force taking
over her life, and can’t get her bearings as a result. By the time she realizes
what’s going on, it’s too late. In my case, I was married and pregnant, and
completely isolated from friends and family and community support.
TTQ – What was the final straw that made you decide that enough was enough and forced you to get out of such a destructive environment?
Leah Murray – When my daughter was born I had an overpowering urge to protect her. I had stupidly hoped that her birth would change him for the better, but it only made him worse. The stress of having a newborn in the apartment sent him over the edge. He would get angry with her for crying. He said she was doing it on purpose to annoy him. He called her “malicious” and “uptight little bitch”. He screamed “shut up!” right next to her ear. Then he told me two things that made my blood run cold. He said he shook her to make her stop crying while I was in the shower, and he said he had images of child molestation implanted in his brain while he was changing her diaper. Then I knew it was time to go.
TTQ – You were granted a divorce in 2010, but there's a 2009 article in The Toronto Star that talks about Tony admitting to his mistakes and being on medication for his mental illness, it also infers that the two of you were trying to reconcile and that you were advocating his release. You go as far as to describe him in the article as being "even better than when we first met". In the end, did 2009 prove to be equally as turbulent as the years before and just more of the same? Is that why you finally divorced him?
Leah Murray – This 2009 article in the Toronto Star hits a nerve with me because this reporter made some major factual mistakes, misquoted me, and took my statements way out of context. After the article came out, it was painfully clear to me that her agenda had been to make Tony look as docile as possible, so as to try and get his career back on track. She portrayed him as an innocent victim of mental illness, and made no serious mention of the domestic abuse and criminal harassment he was charged with and found guilty of.
TTQ – What was the final straw that made you decide that enough was enough and forced you to get out of such a destructive environment?
Leah Murray – When my daughter was born I had an overpowering urge to protect her. I had stupidly hoped that her birth would change him for the better, but it only made him worse. The stress of having a newborn in the apartment sent him over the edge. He would get angry with her for crying. He said she was doing it on purpose to annoy him. He called her “malicious” and “uptight little bitch”. He screamed “shut up!” right next to her ear. Then he told me two things that made my blood run cold. He said he shook her to make her stop crying while I was in the shower, and he said he had images of child molestation implanted in his brain while he was changing her diaper. Then I knew it was time to go.
TTQ – You were granted a divorce in 2010, but there's a 2009 article in The Toronto Star that talks about Tony admitting to his mistakes and being on medication for his mental illness, it also infers that the two of you were trying to reconcile and that you were advocating his release. You go as far as to describe him in the article as being "even better than when we first met". In the end, did 2009 prove to be equally as turbulent as the years before and just more of the same? Is that why you finally divorced him?
Leah Murray – This 2009 article in the Toronto Star hits a nerve with me because this reporter made some major factual mistakes, misquoted me, and took my statements way out of context. After the article came out, it was painfully clear to me that her agenda had been to make Tony look as docile as possible, so as to try and get his career back on track. She portrayed him as an innocent victim of mental illness, and made no serious mention of the domestic abuse and criminal harassment he was charged with and found guilty of.
It’s
true that I prefer we reconcile enough to be on good terms with each other. I
don’t want to spend my life looking over my shoulder. But I was never
interested in going beyond that, nor was I advocating for his release. And as
far as admitting to his mistakes, he has never acknowledged the domestic abuse
he perpetrated on me.
Tony
and I had been separated for years before I decided to divorce him. It’s not
really essential to get divorced unless you’re getting remarried. But by 2010,
I wanted to free myself completely from Tony Rosato – physically, emotionally, spiritually
– and a divorce was necessary for that.
TTQ – What did you learn most from being in such a destructive relationship?
Leah Murray – I learned how much help there is out there for women trapped in abusive relationships. When I was cut off from everyone and everything, I honestly believed I was all alone and there was no way out. But finally I made that one phone call to a shelter and help came pouring in. I was able to see counsellors and get a lawyer. The Humane Society held my cats for me until I got subsidized housing. While testifying at Tony’s trial, I got help from the police and the Victim/Witness Program. These services are just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much free help out there, just waiting for women in trouble to avail themselves of it.
TTQ – What’s become of Tony Rosato and does your daughter have contact with her father, and what is that relationship like?
Leah Murray – Tony lives inToronto
TTQ – What’s your relationship like with your family and friends today, and how would you best describe yourself after going through such an abusive marriage?
Leah Murray – I’d say my relationship with my family and friends is more open and honest today, especially with my brothers. Once you’ve gone through something like that and all the details are out there for everyone to see, you can pretty much talk about anything.
TTQ – What did you learn most from being in such a destructive relationship?
Leah Murray – I learned how much help there is out there for women trapped in abusive relationships. When I was cut off from everyone and everything, I honestly believed I was all alone and there was no way out. But finally I made that one phone call to a shelter and help came pouring in. I was able to see counsellors and get a lawyer. The Humane Society held my cats for me until I got subsidized housing. While testifying at Tony’s trial, I got help from the police and the Victim/Witness Program. These services are just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much free help out there, just waiting for women in trouble to avail themselves of it.
TTQ – What’s become of Tony Rosato and does your daughter have contact with her father, and what is that relationship like?
Leah Murray – Tony lives in
TTQ – What’s your relationship like with your family and friends today, and how would you best describe yourself after going through such an abusive marriage?
Leah Murray – I’d say my relationship with my family and friends is more open and honest today, especially with my brothers. Once you’ve gone through something like that and all the details are out there for everyone to see, you can pretty much talk about anything.
I
think I’m a little smarter, braver, better informed, more outspoken and
skeptical, and a little less naive.
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I'm not a fan of YA literature, but I wish there were more authors like this one writing to warn young people that "love" is not all fun and games.
ReplyDeleteDistrust is best taught by literature.
I met Tony on Inglewood Drive when he was rehearsing some lines for an audition. Very nice guy, shared a couple of jokes. It's a shame he went through all that hell. Glad to see things are better.
ReplyDelete