Survivor Nation
One of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, a generation later
The April 16, 2007, shooting at Virginia Tech, in which thirty-two students and professors were murdered, was at the time the worst mass shooting in contemporary US history. In Survivor Nation, Thomas Kapsidelis returns to this tragedy, now twenty years in the past, and introduces us to the students of April 16, long ago launched into adulthood and dealing with the continuing effects of their own trauma and physical injuries as they navigate safe paths for their sons and daughters. He also tells the stories of parents whose work for reforms has been unceasing. As Kapsidelis shows, much of the leadership on the legislative front and to generate resources for physical and emotional healing is coming from survivors. His book takes readers inside these personal histories, from debates in state capitols to work behind the scenes to help other gun violence survivors get the help they need. Although centered on the Virginia Tech tragedy, the crisis of violence so powerfully explored in this book pervades contemporary life and will resonate with readers everywhere.
- Pamela Haag, author of The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun CultureWhat happens after the media and the television cameras leave, and the survivors, their families and friends, and a community must come to terms with the aftermath of a mass shooting? With great sensitivity and acumen, Kapsidelis' beautifully written book returns to Virginia Tech and introduces us to lives of grief, resilience, mobilization, and tenacity. He dispels the notion that survivors march forward as the ones who “escaped” something. The trauma doesn’t go away for survivors, Kapsidelis shows, but continues and metamorphoses through different stages.
- Jessica DuLong, author of Saved at the Seawall: Stories of the September 11 Boat LiftSurvivor Nation shares stories that desperately need to be heard. Leveraging extraordinary access, Kapsidelis grants readers an inside glimpse into the lasting impact of gun violence on individuals, families, and communities. This book reveals, in painstaking (and painful) detail, the aftermath of mass shootings, showing how effects continue to ripple out for many years to come. Readers will likely not have heard about some of the devastating repercussions, such as the lead poisoning that affects survivors, who must learn to live with bullets lodged in their bodies. This toxicity serves as a brutal metaphor for the lifelong physical and mental problems that a growing number of Americans now face in the wake of these all-too-common mass shootings.
Thomas P. Kapsidelis is a freelance journalist who worked at the Richmond Times-Dispatch for twenty-eight years. He is the author of After Virginia Tech: Guns, Safety, and Healing in the Era of Mass Shootings
