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milesjmoran's review against another edition
3.0
Bloodbath Nation is an engaging account of Auster’s personal relationship with guns, divulging his family’s history (which has a horrifically tragic scar running through it), as well as expressing his thoughts on America’s ongoing gun violence.
I was expecting a more in-depth examination of America’s history of gun violence, something more akin to Younge’s Another Day in the Death of America whereas this feels more like an essay extracted from a collection. Ostrander’s photography added a stark reality to the book and conveyed a powerful message, one that transformed ordinary buildings into haunted monuments to death and violence.
Auster didn’t go quite deep enough into the subject for me. The message is still there, it’s still harrowing and disturbingly pertinent, but I didn’t leave this book knowing anything more than I already knew (other than Auster’s own personal family history and experience).
I was expecting a more in-depth examination of America’s history of gun violence, something more akin to Younge’s Another Day in the Death of America whereas this feels more like an essay extracted from a collection. Ostrander’s photography added a stark reality to the book and conveyed a powerful message, one that transformed ordinary buildings into haunted monuments to death and violence.
Auster didn’t go quite deep enough into the subject for me. The message is still there, it’s still harrowing and disturbingly pertinent, but I didn’t leave this book knowing anything more than I already knew (other than Auster’s own personal family history and experience).