Staff Pick
This is one of the most important books I've ever read. Each chapter profiles the life of a child killed by gun violence on the same randomly selected day in America, 11/23/13. Younge is quick to point out that this isn't a book about gun control; instead, it's a book about what happens when gun control is nonexistent in a country where poverty, racism, and segregation are endemic. Younge's 10 subjects are kids whose deaths would have gone minimally reported, if at all, and whose grieving parents and friends would have been left voiceless if not for his reporting. And this happens an average of 7 times a day, 365 days a year! Another Day forced me to look at the ways that economic inequality and structural racism rob millions of kids of safe, stable childhoods, and as a result leave thousands of them victim to the lure and violence of guns. It doesn't matter where you stand on gun ownership; none of us should be content to live in a country with so many young ghosts. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
WINNER OF THE 2017 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE
On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged 9 to 19, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of 24 hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost.
This powerful and moving work puts a human face — a child’s face — on the “collateral damage” of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.
Review
"This is Gary Younge's masterwork: you will never read news reports about gun violence the same way again. Brilliantly reported, quietly indignant, and utterly gripping. A book to be read through tears." Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
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"Younge has provided us with a beautifully told and empathic account that wrenches at the heart even as it continues to engage the brain." The Guardian
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"...exactingly argued, fluidly written and extremely upsetting. This is your country on guns." The New York Times
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"This book is a righteous challenge to the big insanities of American society: gun ubiquity, racism, poverty, and the supine and bland media that taboos genuine discourse on them. It's all the more daring and subversive for its controlled and mannered tone as it breaks the unwritten law: thou shall not humanize the victims of this ongoing carnage." Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting
About the Author
Gary Younge, an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Nation Institute, is an award-winning columnist for the Guardian and Nation and an acclaimed author. In 2009 he won the British James Cameron award for his coverage of the 2008 presidential election, and in 2015 he won the Foreign Commentator of the Year Award. His most recent book is The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream. His previous books include Who Are We — and Should It Matter in the 21st Century?, Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States, and No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the American South. Formerly the Belle Zeller Visiting Professor of public policy and social administration at Brooklyn College, CUNY, he has two honorary degrees from British universities.