Gone Boy: A Walkabout: A Father's Search for the Truth in His Son's Murder [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

A father transforms the attempt to fathom his sons senseless murder into a complex, surprising account of memory and discovery amid dark American corners of insanity, gun violence, and malfeasance. Gibsons staid life as an antiquarian bookseller was demolished by the death of his 18-year-old son, Galen, in a 1992 mass shooting at Simons Rock College by student Wayne Lo. With the school uncommunicative, his family lost to grief, and their civil suit against the college stalemated, he descended into drinking, dark fantasy, and loosed moorings, then ultimately righted himself by embarking upon a (vehicular) walkabout in an effort to understand Galens death. This results in a meandering narrative in which Gibsons propulsive loss is leavened by wry humor and increasing awareness of his situations contemporary singular absurdity. He explores Los path to murder, the ramifications of firearms availability, and the role of the college, law enforcement, and psychology in the cases disposition, always with startling, engrossing results. Though his familys heartbreak at Galens loss makes for tough reading, its to Gibsons credit as a debut author that his rangy prose and concise aggregate of observation draws one in thoroughly. Rarely maudlin, his book resonates with the paradoxical relationship between fathers and sons and the harder-edged interactions among todays confused, rigidly bohemian youth. And his attempts to comprehend the terrible enigma of Wayne Lo are also invaluable, given that Los act is practically a template for the mass shootings that have become a pox on the nation. Yet theres another dark story here: an instance in which present-day hesitancies toward judgment and action result in a catastrophic institutional failure. Gibson finds numerous ways in which college officials thwarted security personnel and missed opportunities to interrupt Lo in his weapon acquisition. (After years of insurance-company wrangling, an undisclosed settlement was reached.) This book should be seriously considered by education professionals, as well as by violence survivors who might benefit from Gibsons singular odyssey. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

On December 14, 1992, during a shooting rampage at Simon's Rock College, Gibson's 18-year-old son, Galen, was shot and killed. In the aftermath, Gibson, an antiquarian bookseller in Gloucester, MA, embarked on this "walkabout" in order to make sense of his grief. His son's murder, he writes, was "a terrible blow and the greatest teaching the world had to offer. It was God's Will, but it had happened in the world and so it had causes....I figured out that if I concentrated on the worldly chain of causes I might finally work my way up to the God's Will part." In the course of his inquiry into guns, violence, privacy, and responsibility, Gibson decides that the real lesson is that we have to find forgiveness and "take the energy this horrible thing had released and turn it around somehow and send it back out there, clean, so the world might be a better place for it." An emotionally moving, important story; recommended for larger public libraries and academic libraries.ARobert C. Jones, formerly of Central Missouri State Univ., Warrensburg
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

"Poignant, insightful, and admirably honest. . . . An excellent book."          --The New York Times Book Review

"Powerful . . . must reading for everyone troubled by the epidemic of shootings." --Time

"Gone Boy is not merely a book; it's a journey you experience. You will never read a more honest book, and honestly, it changed me."  --Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of Fear
  
"Sad, sometimes funny, beautifully written . . . and ultimately triumphant."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With a New Afterword

When Greg Gibson's oldest son, Galen--eighteen, bright, unique, full of promise--was shot and killed by a fellow student at his school, Gibson found himself undertaking an unusual, highly personal investigation to discover the truth about his son's murder. He felt he owed it to his son, and he knew the process would help save his own sanity.

Gibson's journey begins with a visit to the man who sold the killer the gun and builds to an astonishing interview with the killer's parents--hardworking Taiwanese immigrants as anguished as the Gibsons about their own "gone boy." Along the way, he meets investigators, lawyers, psychiatrists, conspiracy theorists, bureaucrats, and more than a few lost souls.

An important exploration of gun violence in America, this unforgettable book shows a man talking his way out of grief with toughness, honesty, and a sense of humor as dry and bracing as a shot of good whisky. It also tells the unsentimental story of a family moving beyond rage to an understanding of the human heart.

Gregory Gibson is an antiquarian book dealer who lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts.