Author(s): Paul Auster

History

A stunning examination - through words and images - of the epidemic of mass shootings in America today.

Among its victims are men, women, teenagers, children, and even babies. The massacres have taken place in churches, schools, movie theatres, and at rock concerts. Auster establishes how America’s love affair with guns goes all the way back to the arrival of the first British settlers – guns in hand – who used these guns to eradicate the Native Americans who occupied the country. This history of carnage continues to this day.

Interwoven into the text are photographs taken by Spencer Ostrander of the locations of the mass killlngs – which serve as mute testaments to the lives that have been lost.

Guns have become one of the issues dividing America today, but Auster doesn’t take sides. The book is a plea for both sides to find a way of avoiding more death and grief. Accompanying Auster’s text is a series of photographs of the locations of these mass killings. There are no bodies – only the empty spaces which stand as mute memorials to the lives that have been lost.