notanotherbookreview

MASS : A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest by Jo Scott-Coe (April 4, Pelekinesis) With the disturbing acceleration of mass murder shootings, it's easy to forget the first big one. On August 1, 1966, Charles  Whitman, after slaying his wife and mother, climbed the clock tower at UT Austin and shot about 50 people, including the fetus of a pregnant woman. His was the first televised mass shooting and "domestic terror" spectacle in American history. Twisted, mentally ill, yet, as author Jo Scott-Coe shows in MASS : A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest , mass murderers don't develop in a vacuum.  In this deeply researched nonfiction, she traces Whitman's path from his childhood with a violent authoritarian father, brutalized mother, and two younger siblings, also struggling to survive. In this "all American" family the father had a plumbing business, the mother did the accounts and catered to his many edicts, while trying to raise their children to become d...