American Outrage by H. L. Hix

In American Outrage, H. L. Hix shows us how to sustain a conversation with neighbors and friends about gun violence in the United States. In this literary memorial, he asks us to recognize 1,000 lives lost on American soil and to dwell on the details of how these individuals lived. He provides us with a factual accounting of our past, present, and potential future in a society saturated with guns. We can and must listen. Our lives depend on it.
— Joan Burbick, author of Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy

With care, compassion, and respect, this mesmerizing book pays homage to the countless people whose lives have been tragically cut short in the United States as the result of a militarized culture of gun violence. In brief but intensely intimate descriptions of a thousand people from extraordinarily different backgrounds, H. L. Hix breaks through the numbing statistics, and reminds readers of the warmth and humanity of those who are too often portrayed as anonymous “victims.” The overall effect of the book’s extended poetic meditation is vertiginous, kaleidoscopic, heartrending, and profoundly disturbing. American Outrage is an impassioned cry for all of us to confront—and transform—our country’s long-running epidemic of senseless violence.
— Roberto J. González, author of Militarizing Culture: Essays on the Warfare State and War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future

H. L. Hix’s American Outrage portrays in original and compelling ways the out of control gun culture in the U.S. and the death and tragedy that it has wrought upon our culture. Hix provides humanizing descriptive lists of hundreds of victims of gun violence in brief laconic phrases like “Jennifer Parks worked as a kindergarten teacher, and had just completed her masters in education.” The list is interspersed on each page with a paragraph of facts about U.S. gun culture such as: “43: in 1989, the percentage of Americans who believed that having a gun in the house made it a safer place to be.” As an alert reader turns the pages he/she becomes increasingly angry that the American Outrage is destroying our culture and lives and yet we cannot seem to address it or do anything about this Outrage.
— Douglas Kellner, author of Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre

American Outrage provides an innovative approach to the seemingly intractable problem of gun violence in the United States. Fresh and moving, yet cerebral and somber. At a time when powerful voices are most needed, H. L. Hix has answered the call.
— Louis Klarevas, author of Rampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings

H. L. Hix’s other recent books include Bored In Arcane Cursive Under Lodgepole Bark, Moral Tales, Constellation, and another BlazeVOX book, Say It Into My Mouth. His earlier books include an “evidentiary” called American Anger, and an edition and translation of The Gospel that merges canonical with noncanonical sources in a single narrative, and refers to God and Jesus without assigning them gender. He lives and works in the Mountain West.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 294 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-472-7