Overview

""In taking on Capote's masterwork, Justin St. Germain has written nothing less than an essential reckoning with the entire American enterprise of nonfiction. His book changed forever how I see not only In Cold Blood, but also true crime and the limits of literary journalism. I learned so much. This should be required reading for both writers and readers of crime.""-Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author, The Fact Of A Body: A Murder And A Memoir ""Compelling literary analysis featuring a unique personal perspective on the material.""-Kirkus Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is one of the best-selling American books of all time, and is credited with starting the popular literary true crime genre. In the latest volume in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, award-wining author Justin St. Germain writes about a trip he took to Holcomb, Kansas, the site of the Clutter murders In Cold Blood claims to be about. Within the story of the trip, St. Germain talks about his obsession with Capote's classic, and its influence on the book he was writing at the time about his mother's murder, which became his award-winning memoir, Son of A Gun.

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9781632461230

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PRAISE FOR SON OF A GUN: ""[A] spectacular memoir . . . calls to mind two others of the past decade: J. R. Moehringer's Tender Bar and Nick Flynn's Another Bull____ Night in Suck City. All three are about boys becoming men in a broken world. . . . [What] might have been . . . in the hands of a lesser writer, the book's main point . . . [is] amplified from a tale of personal loss and grief into a parable for our time and our nation. . . . If the brilliance of Son of a Gun lies in its restraint, its importance lies in the generosity of the author's insights.""--The New York Times Book Review ""[A] gritty, enthralling new memoir . . . St. Germain has created a work of austere, luminous beauty. . . . In his understated, eloquent way, St. Germain makes you feel the heat, taste the dust, see those shimmering streets. By the end of the book, you know his mother, even though you never met her. And like the author, you will mourn her forever.""--NPR ""If St. Germain had stopped at examining his mother's psycho-social risk factors and how her murder affected him, this would still be a fine, moving memoir. But it's his further probing--into the culture of guns, violence, and manhood that informed their lives in his hometown, Tombstone, Ariz.--that transforms the book, elevating the stakes from personal pain to larger, important questions of what ails our society.""--The Boston Globe ""A visceral, compelling portrait of [St. Germain's] mother and the violent culture that claimed her.""--Entertainment Weekly ""Emotionally raw and beautifully written . . . a book you won't soon forget.""--BookPage ""Impossible to put down . . . Son of a Gun is a raw, compelling read that stays with you beyond the last page.""--GQ ""A great, momentous undertaking . . . This book is brave, honest, savage, and tender all at once. It broke my heart, and I'm so grateful I've read it.""--Jesmyn Ward ""There is a sort of gracefulness in the cadences, and a lovely control of rhythm in the sentences, which do justice to the themes of loss and love that are at the center of this memoir. There is also a level of coiled and accurately conveyed emotion, a careful way of telling truth, and an unsparing release of heartbreak.""--Colm Tóibín ""From an incident of heartbreaking violence, Justin St. Germain has created a clear-eyed and deeply moving meditation on family, geography, and memory, and how difficult it is to find our place in any of them. Son of a Gun is an extraordinary memoir.""--Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds ""Taut . . . audacious . . . compelling . . . Admirably, St. Germain tries to understand how his young adulthood was shaped.""--Kirkus Reviews

PRAISE FOR SON OF A GUN: [A] spectacular memoir . . . calls to mind two others of the past decade: J. R. Moehringer's Tender Bar and Nick Flynn's Another Bull____ Night in Suck City. All three are about boys becoming men in a broken world. . . . [What] might have been . . . in the hands of a lesser writer, the book's main point . . . [is] amplified from a tale of personal loss and grief into a parable for our time and our nation. . . . If the brilliance of Son of a Gun lies in its restraint, its importance lies in the generosity of the author's insights. --The New York Times Book Review [A] gritty, enthralling new memoir . . . St. Germain has created a work of austere, luminous beauty. . . . In his understated, eloquent way, St. Germain makes you feel the heat, taste the dust, see those shimmering streets. By the end of the book, you know his mother, even though you never met her. And like the author, you will mourn her forever. --NPR If St. Germain had stopped at examining his mother's psycho-social risk factors and how her murder affected him, this would still be a fine, moving memoir. But it's his further probing--into the culture of guns, violence, and manhood that informed their lives in his hometown, Tombstone, Ariz.--that transforms the book, elevating the stakes from personal pain to larger, important questions of what ails our society. --The Boston Globe A visceral, compelling portrait of [St. Germain's] mother and the violent culture that claimed her. --Entertainment Weekly Emotionally raw and beautifully written . . . a book you won't soon forget. --BookPage Impossible to put down . . . Son of a Gun is a raw, compelling read that stays with you beyond the last page. --GQ A great, momentous undertaking . . . This book is brave, honest, savage, and tender all at once. It broke my heart, and I'm so grateful I've read it. --Jesmyn Ward There is a sort of gracefulness in the cadences, and a lovely control of rhythm in the sentences, which do justice to the themes of loss and love that are at the center of this memoir. There is also a level of coiled and accurately conveyed emotion, a careful way of telling truth, and an unsparing release of heartbreak. --Colm Toibin From an incident of heartbreaking violence, Justin St. Germain has created a clear-eyed and deeply moving meditation on family, geography, and memory, and how difficult it is to find our place in any of them. Son of a Gun is an extraordinary memoir. --Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds Taut . . . audacious . . . compelling . . . Admirably, St. Germain tries to understand how his young adulthood was shaped. --Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Justin St. Germain is the author of the memoir Son of a Gun, which won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and appeared on best books of 2013 lists from Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Salon, Library Journal, BookPage, and the Pima County Public Library. His writing has recently appeared in New England Review, Tin House, DIAGRAM, Territory, and The Pushcart Prize anthology. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and has also received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Corporation of Yaddo. He grew up in Tombstone, Arizona, ""The Town Too Tough to Die,"" and attended Arizona public schools. He received his BA and MFA from the University of Arizona. He lives in Oregon and teaches at Oregon State.

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