Matt McAvoy Book Review

Without hyperbole, this is a very, very good book, with a superb, interesting and novel premise.  It’s the most thought-provoking and ambiguously clever read I’ve picked up in some time, I must say. 

When the grieving mother of a teenager murdered in a school shooting walks into a boardroom, at the fictional American Rifle Society, armed with a loaded automatic assault weapon, and kills 13 people, it seems like a pretty cut-and-dry, black-and-white case of premeditated murder for revenge – and that’s exactly what the ARS and its hugely powerful members want her charged with.  However, unbelievably she denies the charge – and that’s when the questions start.  And here is where Baird Smart really lives up to his surname.  Before long, even we the readers start to question what we know, and just how guilty she actually is – and I don’t mean that in the context of the morally grey debate around gun control in the U.S., which is confronted inevitably and intensely in this book; I mean we really start to question literally exactly what happened.  It is an exceptionally clever book in this respect.

Don’t expect answers; indeed, this book will leave you with questions – although it does wrap up nicely, so have no fears there.  But the book’s primary objective is to stir discourse, and it does.  There is no doubt in my mind, as a resident of the U.K., that giving civilians assault weapons is a crazy thing to do – but that doesn’t mean I am right, and thankfully the author doesn’t get too preachy about the subject on one side or the other (though I get the distinct impression he is on the left side of the argument).  Sure, I will admit that one or two of the gun-lobby characters seem somewhat hackneyed and caricatured, and maybe the book would have been a little more layered had they not been, but Ann herself is an enigma, reminiscent in some ways of Anthony Hopkins in a movie called Fracture from some years back.

If I’m being somewhat critical, I felt the legal case was a little flimsy, and discussion of the evidence repeated and drawn out, with little substance – but of course that was the point; the ARS and the authorities want the law book thrown at Ann for first-degree murder, even though they’re struggling at every turn to find the evidence.  It is the political optics which are of paramount importance to them, that this massacre cannot be seen as anything other than pure vengeance.  Personally I would also have liked to spend a little more time in the courtroom, rather than learning about proceedings through conversation.  I also found it a little odd that the whole narrative was presented in the present tense, even though the backstory was supposedly being imparted anecdotally.  But this was a small deal compared to the book’s many pluses.

A fantastic offering by Baird, very timely but not in any way opportunistic.  The author has done an exceptional job of presenting the study in a sensitive, informed and intelligent manner, initiating some common-sense debate in the process.  It’s We Need to Talk About Kevin from the industry’s point of view, rather than the personal – although the characters, particularly Ann, have just the right measure of profound emotion and cool calculation about them.  A very well-written allegory, by an author certainly qualified and equipped to do so – highly recommended.