In Eddie's Name: One Family's Triumph Over Tragedy

by William Knoedelseder and Bryn Freedman

Book Overview

"On November 11, 1994, a Philadelphia sixteen-year-old named Eddie Polec was brutally beaten and left to die - on the front steps of his own church - by a gang of teenagers from a neighboring suburb.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571199240
• ISBN13: 9780571199242
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Hit Close to Home

I am 17 years old, and in june 2000 I was brutally assaulted by 3 kids with baseball bats and had to have reconstructive surgery on my skull. This happened about a mile from where eddie was killed, and I'm also a senior at cardinal dougherty high school, where eddie was enrolled. I read this book, and I must say it hit me hard because I was so close to receiving the same fate as eddie. Please if you can take some time to read this book so that we may spread the message of peace to the world, and stop future things like this from happening.

A very well written book.

After watching the Polec's on Dateline NBC recently, I got this book from the library, read it and cried almost halfway through it. I was hoping that the book was fiction and not true but that was not the case. I have every respect for the Polecs, wanting to make the community a better place inspite of tragedy to their son Eddie,They had a wonderful son whose life was taken in a senseless tragedy. I recommend this book to anyone who has children.

In Eddie's Name

A great book. In Eddie's Name deals with a nightmare event in the life of a family, and yet leaves the reader with hope. Once begun, it is impossible to put down. Although the subject matter is difficult ( the murder of an innocent young man by a gang of thugs) the way it's handled takes you beyond the violence. It's about strenght in the face of terrible pain, and faith, and real family values. By the end, I felt I'd gotten to know Eddie and his family. In a small way, I went through what happened to them and came out a richer, better person. On my strong suggestion, my 18 year old son also read it. He finished it in three days!

In Eddie's Name: A Moving and Thought-Provoking Journey

The true story of a senseless act of violence and its heart-breaking aftermath, "In Eddie's Name" is uniquely powerful in its ability to simultaneously awaken in the reader two strongly opposing forces usually found to be mutually exclusive: angry, moral indignation and then, understanding and forgiveness. Told in a clear, concise, evenly journalistic manner, it is a story that grips you from the outset and propels you along a path of horror, loss and injustice that few have traveled with such dignity and grace as do the book's quietly heroic protagonists, the Polec family of Philadelphia.Galvanized as I was, I read the book in one compelling evening and would recommend it without reservation to anyone who wonders whatever became of civility and the justice that was the inherent promise of the American social experience.

Should be at the top of Oprah's list !

Anyone who is a teen, parents or lives with teens, or teaches, represents or works with youth in any capacity should inhale this story of menacing youth violence and one family's victory over the evil that spawns it. The Polecs' story will sear the hearts and souls of its readers and cause them to look closely at themselves, their children, their family life, their faith and their communities through a wholly different lens. In this book the brutal details of Eddie Polec's murder and the events that preceded and followed it read side by side with unfathomable hope and potential that is captured beautifully by the authors. The wave of social action that grew out of this family's experience with the tragedy of Eddie's death, the flawed 911 emergency system that failed him and the justice system that underserved him, has already effected changes in human service systems designed to protect life in Philadelphia and have sparked a proliferation of violence prevention programs in local school systems."In Eddie's Name" is the sometimes tender, sometimes outraged, but always very human account of what happened when seemingly innocuous and commonplace teen encounters exploded with tragic results. It is a story of family, school and community response to unspeakable trauma which can, and is being used as a very powerful teaching tool by kids, parents and youth-serving professionals and volunteers.And in a most profound way, this story is also a heartfelt tribute to the Polec family's faith and courage and determination not to succumb as well to the evil that felled their son and brother.