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"The collectible, expanded edition of Paul Auster and Spencer Ostrander's "remarkably powerful" (Washington Post) Bloodbath Nation, an intimate and powerful rumination on American gun violence, now highlighting Ostrander's haunting photographs of the sites of mass shootings. In this short, searing book, Paul Auster traces centuries of America's use and abuse of guns, from the violent displacement of the native population to the forced enslavement of millions, to the bitter divide between embattled gun control and anti-gun control camps that has developed over the past 50 years and the mass shootings that dominate the news today. Interwoven with Spencer Ostrander's haunting photographs of the sites of more than thirty mass shootings in all parts of the country, Bloodbath Nation presents a succinct but thorough examination of America at a crossroads, and asks the central, burning question of our moment: What kind of society do we want to live in?"--
About the author
PAUL AUSTER (1947 – 2024) was the bestselling author of
Baumgartner, Bloodbath Nation, 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for
Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of
Smoke, the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for
Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel
4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He lived in Brooklyn, New York.
Summary
An intimate, unforgettable series of photographs by Spencer Ostrander documenting American gun violence, interwoven with writing by Paul Auster, one of our greatest living writers and “genuine American original” (The Boston Globe),
In this short, searing book, Auster traces centuries of America’s use and abuse of guns, from the violent displacement of the native population to the forced enslavement of millions, to the bitter divide between embattled gun control and anti-gun control camps that has developed over the past 50 years and the mass shootings that dominate the news today. Since 1968, more than one and a half million Americans have been killed by guns. The numbers are so large, so catastrophic, so disproportionate to what goes on elsewhere, that one must ask why. Why is America so different—and why are we the most violent country in the Western world?
Spencer Ostrander’s haunting photographs of the sites of more than thirty mass shootings across the United States are highlighted in this edition of Bloodbath Nation. And through it all, Paul Auster presents a succinct but thorough examination of America at a crossroads, and asks the central, burning question of our moment: What kind of society do we want to live in?
