I’m saying this with more respect than exasperation; I recently—and eagerly—completed my second readings of both Devil in the White City and his Dead Wake (which I highly recommend) knowing full well there would be sections that would make my eyes glaze over. He crafts a great narrative and leaves you feeling smarter page after page, but I think we can all agree that his works can sometimes be … a lot.
Case in point: Lethal Passage examines the confluence of economic, legal, cultural, social and historic events leading to a bullied child with limited financial means acquiring a specific gun and shooting students and teachers at a relatively wealthy private school in 1988.
The premise didn’t sound like it could support a book of Lethal Passage’s heft, and though the topic doesn’t really interest me, I was curious to see what Larson did with his research and his gift for narrative to fill the book’s 300+ pages.
And boy, did my mind wander as I slogged through it.
I kept telling myself if he were recounting the note-by-note process of Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler and Hal Prince bringing Sweeney Todd from concept to Broadway, I’d be hanging onto every word. So if you’re fascinated by Old West history and mythology, Hollywood cowboys and gangsters, the noble birth and jarring radicalization of the NRA, the political ebbs and flows of the ATF’s powers and purposes, and the perennial legal absurdities that make it nearly effortless for anyone to buy a firearm, this is totally your book.
Granted, all of the above puts deep, nuanced context behind young Nicholas Elliott’s conditioning to think shooting classmates was his best course of action in response to bullying, his access to enough information to help him make an informed decision about which gun he thought was best for the job—and the best local retailer for buying it without issue—and his relationships with the adults he could trust to help him purchase the gun and modify it to operate with enhanced efficiency.
But hoo-boy.
Interspersed between his bloated history/context essays, Larson does cover how low-income-single-mom Nicholas was at an expensive private school and why he was probably the victim of bullying. He also recounts the history of the gun store, its owners and its place in the local gun-rights zeitgeist. And he introduces us to the students and faculty who will eventually live and die in the shooting spree.
Those stories alone are compelling, and as is his usual format he masterfully triangulates them from separate stories into a singular cohesive narrative. But that information would barely add up to qualify as a beach-read novella.
So he piles on the contexts and backstories and anecdotes and historical coincidences and nearly everything else he can come up with to flesh out his base premise.
As I said earlier: I don’t have a ton of innate fascination with Lethal Passage’s broader topic and themes. But I’ve read all of Larson’s books (except for his most recent, The Demon of Unrest) so I wasn’t going to let this one slip through the cracks.
I can honestly report I almost quit out of boredom multiple times, but I’m not at all suggesting you will. I’m more relieved than glad I can say I finished it. And while I don’t NOT recommend it, I think it’s fair to say it has a very limited, very specific audience … and if you think that audience is you, by all means give it a read.
No comments:
Post a Comment