About this item
On January 6, 2017, a lone gunman took five lives and wounded eight people at Fort Lauderdale Airport. This book is about the Lauderdale shooting told from the perspective of bestselling author William Hazelgrove, who just happened to be there with his wife and children.Though focused on one terrifying incident that the author witnessed, this story is also a prototype of American shootings showing the interplay of victims, police, media, the shooter, and what constitutes this peculiar American form of violence. The author documents the perverse chain of events that set the stage for this tragedy: the failure of police and the FBI to stop this troubled Iraq War veteran, who had earlier approached them and said point-blank that he was hearing voices telling him to kill others; the incredible fact that his weapon was taken and then given back to him, the very gun that would kill five people and shut down a major airport for forty-eight hours; and the circumstances of American society that allowed this gun to be checked through airport security as a legal firearm and then delivered to the killer, who casually strolled into a bathroom, loaded the pistol, and returned to the baggage claim area to start his murderous rampage.
About the Author
William Elliott Hazelgrove is the best-selling author of ten novels and four works of nonfiction. Ripples, Tobacco Sticks, Mica Highways, Rocket Man, The Pitcher, Real Santa, Jackpine, My Best Year, The Bad Author and The Pitcher 2, Hemingways Attic, Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, Forging a President, How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt, and Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly and Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections, History Book Club Bestsellers, Junior Library Guild Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards and optioned for the movies. He has presented speeches at the University Club in Chicago, The Union League Club and in Washington DC at the Woodrow Wilson House and filmed by CSPAN for American History TV. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway's birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications. He has been the subject of interviews in NPR's All Things Considered with Robert Siegel along with features in The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Richmond Times Dispatch, USA Today, People, Channel 11, NBC, WBEZ, WGN. The Pitcher is a Junior Library Guild Selection Storyline optioned the movie rights. Forging a President How the West Created Teddy Roosevelt will be out May 2017.He runs a political cultural blog, The View From Hemingway's Attic.
