About this item
We Need to Talk about Kevin meets Dept. of Speculation in a novel about one woman's furious grappling with the repercussions of small-town tragedy.FORMER TEACHER HAD MOTIVE. Recently suspended for a so-called outburst, high school English teacher Anna Crawford is stewing over the injustice at home when she is shocked to see herself named on television as a suspect in a shooting at the school where she works. Though she is quickly exonerated, and the actual teenage murderer identified, her life is nevertheless held up for relentless scrutiny and judgment as this quiet town descends into media mania. Gun sales skyrocket, victims are transformed into martyrs, and the rules of public mourning are ruthlessly enforced. Anna decides to wholeheartedly reject the culpability she's somehow been assigned, and the rampant sexism that comes with it, both in person and online. A piercing feminist howl written in trenchant prose, How to Be Safe is a compulsively readable, darkly funny expos of the hypocrisy that ensues when illusions of peace are shattered.
About the Author
Tom McAllister is the non-fiction editor of Barrelhouse Magazine, and co-host of the weekly podcast Book Fight! A 2006 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, his short stories and essays have been published widely, in publications including The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Millions, The Rumpus, Hobart, FiveChapters, Black Warrior Review, and The Collagist. His memoir, "Bury Me in My Jersey" was published in 2010, and his first novel, "The Young Widower's Handbook" was published in 2017. His novel "How to Be Safe" will be published in April 2018. He is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Temple University and lives in New Jersey.
