This book is phenomenal. I had a terrible time tearing myself away from it. You could feel the pain in the author's heart as he talked about his family and especially his brother. I wish the author nothing but the best.

Over the course of 17 years, a domestic terrorist code-named "The Unabomber" targeted corporate executives and academics by sending them homemade letter-bombs that would detonate upon opening. Twenty-three people were injured, and three were killed. The FBI's investigation was going nowhere, until a social worker named David Kaczynski provided a tip that the Unabomber could possibly be his estranged older brother Ted, a former college mathematics professor who had retreated from the world to live in a remote cabin in the wilds of Montana. David Kaczynski will forever be known as "The Unabomber's Brother", and as the citizen who tipped off the FBI as to the Unabomber's likely identity. Ted is serving eight life sentences at the Supermax prison in Colorado. The two brothers remain estranged to this day.

Every Last Tie is a family story. David Kaczynski explains that his now-deceased parents were loving, caring people who should not be blamed for their older son's misanthropy. He also writes that it really was his wife, Linda, who figured out that Ted was the Unabomber. As practicing Buddhists, David and Linda felt the had to tip off the FBI, not only to stop the violence, but also to prevent Ted from accumulating even more bad karma, which would affect his spiritual standing for many lifetimes to come, than he already had.

This short book does not provide the complete story of the Unabomber and will likely only make sense to readers who are already familiar with Ted Kaczynski and his crimes. Still, for those interested in the impact of mental illness on families, this book is well worth reading.

I don't know why I chose to read Every Last Tie -- I don't have any particular fascination or interest in the Unibomber -- but I'm really glad I took a chance on this book. The author -- David Kaczynski -- is Ted Kaczynski's brother. Not only is he the Unibomber's brother, but at the urging of his wife he's the one who identified Ted as a possible suspect for the slew of mail bombs that killed 3 people and injured many more from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. Don't read this book if you're looking for juicy facts about the Unabomber or his family. Do read this book if you're interested in a very human portrait of the Kaczynski family and the impact of Ted's crimes on his brother and parents. David doesn't apologize for his brother, but he gives dimension to the world he came from. Each of four chapters is focused on different members of the family: Ted, their mother, their father and David's wife. David depicts his brother as always having been odd, isolated and in later life very angry. David's depiction of his parents, and especially his mother, is heartbreaking and loving. And the final section is the most powerful, dealing with his wife Linda, and the agony David and Linda went through together to figure out if Ted was the Unibomber and what to do about it. This is a short book. It is well written. It feels honest. And it feels like a necessary expression from someone who had to make and live with an incredibly difficult decision -- the only right decision, but still a difficult one with devastating consequences for his family. My only complaint about the book is that there's an unnecessary afterword written by a psychiatrist who dwells on mental illness and mass killings -- it's not necessary and it really doesn't fit with David's narrative. Other than that, this was a worthwhile read, even for someone who wasn't specially interested in the topic to start with. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

We talk about expectations that people will turn in friends and family members who are suspected of terrorism, or who have the potential and intention to commit horrific acts, but don't think too deeply about what that experience will be like for the informant. Here, Ted Kaczynski's brother explains, in detail, what happens when you call the FBI to report that your older brother is probably the Unabomber, your mother resists the idea, the news tears your life apart until settling into an acceptable (but not entirely correct) narrative of "His Brother's Keeper," and you endure the trial process while being befriended by one of the surviving victims. David Kaczynski has written an articulate and striking account of something we expect of "good people," and which forms a key part of criminal investigation, but which wrenchingly destroys all the other bonds and illusions a family has built.