Bloodbath Nation

This is Paul Auster's very personal reckoning with the glorification of gun ownership in American culture and society. He begins by sharing biographical vignettes, starting with the toy Colts of his childhood and the Westerns on television. He then recounts the first impacts in his immediate environment, including the grandfather shot by his grandmother—a long-held family secret that Auster only learned about by chance. From there, he delves back into American history and explains why the gun in the hands of the free citizen has a direct lineage from the violence of the slaveholding society. The debate over gun ownership leads to the heart of current discussions about the structure of the American social system. Auster presents himself as both a polemical and clear-sighted political observer and commentator. The text is accompanied by photographs from US photographer Spencer Ostrander—eerily striking black-and-white images of the sites of well-known massacres, capturing their haunting stillness.