Journal of the Dead: A Story of Friendship and Murder in the New Mexico Desert

"The man of knowledge," Nietzsche is said to have remarked, "must not only be able to love his enemies; he must also be able to hate his friends." Indeed, it's a thirst for existential knowledge and adventure that unexpectedly pushes two bosom friends beyond the brink of disaster--and ultimately calls into question the very meaning of friendship--in Journal of the Dead. Jacob Kersten's riveting account expanding on an article originally published in Maxim--reconstructs the true-crime story of a baffling murder that took place one desperate morning in 1999 in New Mexico's Rattlesnake Canyon. Raffi Kodikian and David Coughlin, having lost their way after embarking on a casual, short-term hike in the desert, find themselves out of hope, on the verge of fatal dehydration. According to a journal kept by Kodikian, they decide on a mutual suicide pact to spare each other excruciating pain before an inevitable death. Yet Kodikian survives after stabbing his friend. Soon afterward, he is rescued by rangers and subsequently charged with the murder of his best friend.

Kersten's source material has a disturbingly fascinating quality from the start, but his accomplishment in shaping it into a multi-layered narrative is admirable and artful. Kersten pulls out all the stops in depicting not just the back story of these two friends and their circle but also the deeper focus of the history of the desert, its allure and attendant attractions--in particular the Carlsbad Caverns--along with intriguing excursions on such topics as the biology of dehydration, the mechanics of topographical maps, and the legal niceties of the "intoxication defense." His choice of background details enhances our sense of the extreme situation in which these unfortunate individuals are trapped and helps retard our easy judgment of Kodikian s choice. Kersten is especially good at restoring an element of suspense--the outcome of the desert tragedy is replayed earlier in his book--in the way he allows the ensuing courtroom drama to unfold. Yet however much he attempts to maintain an aura of ambiguity around Kodikian's motives, Kersten can't quite efface a stance of exculpatory compassion. --Thomas May