Sen. Scott Brown book called "lies"..."pure fiction"

Former stepfather assails Sen. Brown's book
His partner calls it "pure fiction"

By PETER ROSSI, Editor, The Wakefield Daily Item

One of the step-fathers that Senator Scott Brown has accused of physically abusing him in his book "Against All Odds," said yesterday that the chapter dealing with his relationship with the 1977 Wakefield High graduate is "95 percent lies."

 Brown book "95 percent lies."
             - Larry McShane.

Former longtime Wakefield resident and onetime Wakefield High baseball coach Larry McShane spoke to the Daily Item from his home in Palm Harbor, Fla., after a woman who said she has been his "significant other" for over 20 years criticized the book in a letter to the Daily Item Forum.

Brown's mother, Judy, was married to McShane in the mid-'70s. Brown devotes chapter nine in the book to "Larry" and talks about their life in the new home that McShane had built at the at the end of the June Circle cul-de-sac. It was the house pictured near the end of the 60 Minutes Leslie Stahl interview with Brown that he said he contemplated buying around 1999 so he could burn it down, in effect erasing his memories of the home.

The Senator mentions McShane by name in Chapter Nine and among the allegations against the stepfather he writes,

"He had been injured in an industrial explosion. The skin on his face and much of his upper body had been burned by heat and flame and had healed into scars. But what had borne the brunt of the blast's force were his hands. There, the skin was a knotted mass of scars. ... He would jab at my eyes, my face, my neck, my stomach, my ribs, ramming me with those spare little points, the sawed-off stumps of his fingers that were nothing more than skin-covered bone. He never had to make a fist; the remains of his fingers might have had almost no sensation but they were brutal in their efficiency."

McShane, a 1954 graduate of Wakefield High, was one of five men injured a gas-leak explosion of a construction site trailer in Charlestown in January of 1971, near the old Prison Point Bridge. He was employed by the MBTA at the time and was working on the Haymarket North rapid transit extension. Three-and-a-half years later a Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded McShane $830,000, at the time what was believed to be the highest individual injury verdict in Massachusetts.

 "I'm hoping other people from our hometown will come forward and expose some of this author's fantasies. The book is pure fiction."
    - Wilma (Holmquist) Amliw.

Former Wakefield resident Wilma (Holmquist) Amliw wrote in the Forum letter printed on Page 4 today, "I have been Larry's significant other for over 20 years and he has never been violent in any way. Under the sometimes gruff exterior is a man with a heart of gold. I'm sure a lot of people he has helped out and coached over the years would agree with me. I'm hoping other people from our hometown will come forward and expose some of this author's fantasies. The book is pure fiction."

She said she changed her last name to a reverse of her given name about 30 years ago following the end of her marriage to a local man.

McShane, 74, in a brief telephone interview from the Florida home he shares with Amliw, said the sections of the book dealing with his relationship with the future senator and the alleged abuse is "95 percent lies ... it never happened." He did not want to get into a discussion over the specifics Brown mentions in Chapter Nine.

Senator Brown, who will be in Wakefield Friday night for the Wakefield High Hall of Fame Induction at the Sheraton Colonial Hotel, defended the book.

"I wouldn't expect him to say anything differently," he said of McShane's comments. "It was something my mother, sister and I experienced in our lives and we've moved on. It was a small part of my life but not the only part."

Brown, who spoke while aboard a plane flying back to Washington, D.C., has been touring the state and nation recently holding book signing events in a variety of communities. The book is currently number four on the New York Times bestseller list.

Reprinted with permission of The Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield, MA.