A Parade of Grief

The Melcherts’ card arrived in the mail.  It began the way many others did.  It was wonderful to receive your Christmas card, they wrote.  Then news of the family—what the older children were doing, and their younger son Alex had begun his freshman year at College.  At that point the card changed tone: “Unfortunately Alex was shot six times coming back from a weekend in Columbus Sunday morn.  A nutcase blasted him at a rest stop.” That card—that sentence—persuaded me to write this book.

“… ‘An isolated instance of butchery? Not so extraordinary, unfortunately. Not so isolated either. The country is awash in guns. People use them to kill other people.’ With this book, the author, a retired professor, documents the proliferation of appalling and grief-inducing incidents of gun violence that have marred contemporary American life, including infamous mass shootings and smaller events like the one that affected his friends’ son. He traces America’s history with the subject, from the days of Bleeding Kansas to the long tradition of political assassination, exploring the ways that American gun culture has become more radical over time. Related issues of racism, police violence, mental health, and suicide are discussed, as are the numerous ways that efforts to legislate gun control have been stymied at all levels of government. Fraga is a skilled writer, and his matter-of-fact prose captures the mundane terror of these stories. . . ” Kirkus Reviews