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.
...a gripping account that leads the reader through places as disparate as the vast corn and soya fields of Michigan and the killing fields of Chicago ... It’s a journey through a deeply troubled America that will make its reader want to join the author in howling at the moon ... although all the victims were at the beginning of their lives, this is not a book about innocents gunned down. It is, instead, a gripping account of the conditions that turn so many of America’s powerless into victims ... what makes this book stand out is the strength of its analysis ... Younge has provided us with a beautifully told and empathic account that wrenches at the heart even as it continues to engage the brain.
...exactingly argued, fluidly written and extremely upsetting ... But Mr. Younge makes for a personable, unusual narrator. As a Briton, he brings a fresh perspective to this topic. As a father and a man of Barbadian descent, his interest in it is also personal ... What is perhaps most disheartening and eye-opening about Mr. Younge’s book is the fatalism he discovers in the communities most affected by gun violence.
One of the saddest aspects of Another Day in the Death of America is its lack of surprise ... [it] is not a book geared toward penetrating the walls of detachment and even indifference that everyday citizens build to deal (or not deal) with the violence ... Younge's anecdotal style has a measured strength ... The author's difficulty in finding and questioning relatives of the young shooting victims proves a stumbling block he can't always get past.
