Bloodbath Nation

Bloodbath Nation is about the epidemic that is tearing apart the fabric of American society. An epidemic caused—not by Covid—but by guns.

Among its victims are men, women, teenagers, children, and even babies. The massacres have taken place in churches, schools, movie theatres, and at rock concerts. Auster establishes how America's love affair with guns goes all the way back to the arrival of the first British settlers—guns in hand—who used these guns to eradicate the Native Americans who occupied the country. This history of carnage continues to this day.

Guns have become one of the issues dividing America today, but Auster doesn't take sides. The book is a plea for both sides to find a way of avoiding more death and grief. Accompanying Auster's text is a series of photographs of the locations of these mass killings. There are no bodies—only the empty spaces which stand as mute memorials to the lives that have been lost.