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A review by kate66
Bloodbath Nation by Paul Auster
5.0
Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC. I saw the author and bit. This is not one of Auster's wonderful fictions though, this is real life.
In Bloodbath Nation Paul Auster gives us a searing description of the state of the USA and its increasingly baffling reliance on guns. His opinions are well reasoned and based on historical evidence. He's certainly right that attempting to rid the US of all firearms would not work, we only have to look at prohibition or banned books to know that when something is denied it is sought all the more.
However arguments aside the figures are staggering. So many deaths, so many lives ended, ruined, interrupted, wasted. It makes for a sobering read.
It is only made more unnerving by Spencer Ostrander's photographs of the sites of some of the more publicised massacres (or mass shootings if you prefer). There are no bodies but the captions tell their own story - most of these sites are now bulldozed or remain closed since the shooting.
Auster also looks at the perpetrators, explains the history behind the "right to bear arms" and the more recent history that led to the state the US is in now - fractured and hurting.
The question why America and nowhere else is a good one. The answer may be a long time coming as the two sides of pro and anti gun cannot agree on the simplest of conundrums, ie who/what do we blame? The guns or the people who wield them.
I do not know the answer but surely a dialogue should be started between the two sides or (with the installation of another divisive president - whoever they may be) the US's problems will only get worse.
Read it. It may only be an essay but it is concise, well considered and erudite.
In Bloodbath Nation Paul Auster gives us a searing description of the state of the USA and its increasingly baffling reliance on guns. His opinions are well reasoned and based on historical evidence. He's certainly right that attempting to rid the US of all firearms would not work, we only have to look at prohibition or banned books to know that when something is denied it is sought all the more.
However arguments aside the figures are staggering. So many deaths, so many lives ended, ruined, interrupted, wasted. It makes for a sobering read.
It is only made more unnerving by Spencer Ostrander's photographs of the sites of some of the more publicised massacres (or mass shootings if you prefer). There are no bodies but the captions tell their own story - most of these sites are now bulldozed or remain closed since the shooting.
Auster also looks at the perpetrators, explains the history behind the "right to bear arms" and the more recent history that led to the state the US is in now - fractured and hurting.
The question why America and nowhere else is a good one. The answer may be a long time coming as the two sides of pro and anti gun cannot agree on the simplest of conundrums, ie who/what do we blame? The guns or the people who wield them.
I do not know the answer but surely a dialogue should be started between the two sides or (with the installation of another divisive president - whoever they may be) the US's problems will only get worse.
Read it. It may only be an essay but it is concise, well considered and erudite.