The Last Gun I Shot

A Texan on guns, grief, and safety. Plus: a novel about the therapeutic impulse; and saying goodbye to an old car. View in browser | Update your preferences Saturday, September 23, 2023 In today’s newsletter, The Weekend Essay, and then: • A novel about the therapeutic impulse and its discontents • Saying goodbye to an old car • Which war does Washington want? The Last Gun I Shot As a Texan, as an American, I believed that I wouldn’t be able to understand where I lived unless I wrapped my head around the guns themselves. By Rachel Monroe Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux The first time I saw an AR-15 up close was at my friend Agustin’s house, in Texas. This was in the summer of 2020, after the mass shootings in El Paso and Sutherland Springs and Midland-Odessa, but before the ones in Uvalde and Cleveland and the Allen Outlets mall. I had been shooting guns because I had been writing about guns. So far, though, my only experience was with pistols; Agustin had offered to teach me about semi-automatic rifles. Agustin and I were both members of the volunteer fire department in Marfa, which sounds more exciting than it is—we spent a lot of time sitting around the station, fiddling with engines, and trading local gossip. I’d picked Agustin as my long-gun tutor because he seemed like a good mixture of brave and safe. He worked at the power company, where he was a lineman; on the weekends, he competed in those obstacle courses in which you scale walls and splash through mud pits. He had a black Corvette that he drove in an open-road race in which the goal was not to go as fast as possible but to maintain an average speed of a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. That was very Agustin—adrenaline, but within boundaries. On the rare occasion it was necessary for the fire department to enter a burning building, it was often Agustin who went. Keep reading The Political Scene Podcast Which War Does Washington Want? As Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, lobbied Congress for more war-related aid, House Republicans continued to fight their own battle over government spending. Books We Recommend This Week Reviews of notable new fiction and nonfiction. Beyond the Door of No Return, by David Diop, translated from the French by Sam Taylor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). This metafictional historical novel centers on the recollections of an eighteenth-century French botanist, whose voyage to Senegal is irrevocably altered by his fascination with a young woman who has escaped from a slave ship. His account begins as a travelogue and then transforms into a record of the escapee’s ordeal, which she recounts to the botanist in the course of one long night: a mesmerizing tale of capture, getaway, and revenge. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. I’m a Fan, by Sheena Patel (Graywolf). The corrosive logic of one-sided relationships is the subject of this dryly funny polemical novel, told from the perspective of a young woman obsessed with her married lover and his ex-girlfriend. The narrator provokes the lover in various ways, in the hope that he’ll end his other love affairs, despite her being aware of her delusion. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. Young Queens, by Leah Redmond Chang (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In this triple biography, the dynamics of Renaissance Europe are illustrated through the lives and the politically motivated marriages of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. In an era of empire-hungry monarchs and religious violence, these women, while fulfilling their obligations as wives and mothers, forged diplomatic connections through family ties. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. Anansi’s Gold, by Yepoka Yeebo (Bloomsbury). For two decades, beginning in the late nineteen-sixties, a Ghanaian man named John Ackah Blay-Miezah carried out an astonishingly successful scam by pretending to have inherited billions of dollars from Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President. Yeebo, a journalist, skillfully interweaves archival material, F.B.I. records, and interviews to recount the saga of the con man’s career, and to reflect on how lies can be leveraged in the creation of national histories. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. The best books of 2023 so far What are you reading this week? Reply to let us know. Culture Dept. Fiction “The Narrow Way” There are those who swear that the Devil hides in the jungle, beyond the perimeter, where the branches whisper secrets that drive men crazy. By Liliana Colanzi Page-Turner A Novel About the Therapeutic Impulse and Its Discontents “Loved and Missed” is a seductive, clear-eyed account of the delights and dangers of caring for others. By Jane Hu The Front Row “Early Short Films of the French New Wave” Is a Revelation A two-disk set is an opportunity to appreciate underappreciated talents and the cultural policies that nurtured them. By Richard Brody Culture Desk Goodbye, Hunk of Home When you trade in the old car, trade me in, too. By Glynnis Fawkes Editor’s Pick Profiles We Are Alive Bruce Springsteen was born on this day in 1949. From 2012: a Profile of the Boss at sixty-two. By David Remnick Name Drop: Which Oscar winner caused controversy with a 1989 music video in which she wore a sheer body stocking on the U.S.S. Missouri? Play our À la Mode quiz pack » Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the daily newsletter from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. 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