Bloodbath Nation

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?