Philipp Meyer, Khaled Hosseini and everyone else in publishing

In recent weeks, I've pushed the ever-encroaching piles of papers to the edge of my desk for just enough time to chat by phone with Philipp Meyer and Khaled Hosseini. 

I also ran away from my desk long enough to cover Book ExpoAmerica. (Chris Vognar teamed up with me on the story. Also led me to a good Indian restaurant, for which I am grateful.) 

Michael Merschel on "Gun Guys," by Dan Baum

Last month, I reviewed Dan Baum's Gun Guys for The Dallas Morning News.

If you can't get access to that, you should be able to read the blog post about my own personal encounter with a gun guy.


UPDATE Feb. 18, 2019: The blog post linked above is dead. But you can find the text about that encounter below.

 

So while I was reading Dan Baum's Gun Guys in preparation for this review, I had an encounter with an apparent gun enthusiast that seemed to embody everything that anti-gun people hate about gun enthusiasts.

It was at a local sporting goods store. I was roaming the fishing aisle, looking for lead weights for an ultimately unsuccessful Pinewood Derby project (and probably daydreaming about how much I'd rather be drowning some flies in a Montana lake or something) when I drifted over to the hunting aisle. Now, I don't hunt, but I'm not opposed to venison, either. So I probably would have drifted right back if I hadn't overheard the clerk behind the counter explaining a product to a customer. The product looked something like this:

[image of large, black shotgun] 

Now, that's a weapon that will get your attention. But -- we are in Texas. And I was in a sporting goods store. So, thus far -- not much of a story.

Then I heard what the clerk was saying: He was explaining how this particular shotgun was excellent for home defense -- because you could blast right through a wall if somebody were hiding on the other side.

And then, he pointed the weapon at a doorway at the end of the gun counter. I think he was aiming above the door -- I was at an awkward angle, and caught the motion out of the corner of my eye, and I don't want to accuse someone of being reckless when I did not have a chance to ask him about it later. (OK, to be honest -- I could have gone back but did not want to confront a guy who was holding a wicked black shotgun.) So call this a casual observation. Although I distinctly heard the boast about being able to shoot someone through a wall.

And what went through my mind was:

a) Exactly how many of the Cardinal Rules of Gun Safety were being violated, at least in spirit, at the moment, because

b) Moments before, I had been on the opposite side of that door, potentially in the line of fire.

The Cardinal Rules of Gun Safety come up a lot in Gun Guys. They are: 1) Treat all firearms as though they are loaded. 2) Never allow your muzzle to cross anything you are not willing to destroy and pay for. 3) Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target and you are ready to fire. 4) Be sure of your target and what is around and behind it. 5) Maintain control of your firearm.

Baum drives home that if gun-rights advocates preached about gun safety with the same enthusiasm that some use to talk about the sanctity of the Second Amendment, it would go a long way toward providing solutions about gun violence.

I happen to agree. I'm no gun collector, but I've never been afraid of owners, either -- because the owners I know are people who know the Cardinal Rules.

And this probably helps explain why I liked Baum's book. Baum is able to show respect and admiration for firearms and their owners while also being willing to point out irrational behavior on all sides.

I like that he isn't shy about how much fun guns can be. For years, I proudly displayed a framed target that showed a rather impressive grouping (I thought) from my trip to a firing range. And many years ago, I had a good time reporting a story from a Soldier of Fortune convention in Las Vegas. Shooting at stuff in the desert is a LOT of fun.

But as Baum's wife points out -- "You can project idiocy a long ways with a gun."

Put another way -- I don't mind living in a world where people collect machine guns, attend country clubs where they run and shoot at stuff, or even walk the mean streets of Boulder, Colo. armed and ready to shoot, to cite some examples from the book. I'm pretty sure I am more likely to be taken out by a reckless Mini driver on the way home, or maybe by a stray banana peel in my kitchen, as I am to be injured by anyone engaged in such activity.

But I'm not sure I feel safer knowing that somewhere out there is a gun owner looking for an excuse to test the idea that his shotgun could take out someone on the other side of his door. That strange rustling might be a burglar, sure. But it might be a book critic, just looking for some fishing weights, glad he made it home safely to deliver them to his son.

More Ian Frazier, Marc Brown, and other bits of literature

Hello, people interested in Michael Merschel. He is still around, busy doing stuff besides updating his archive.

He is usually kept occupied editing the books pages and Healthy Living at The Dallas Morning News. 

Now and then he leaves his desk to do something besides brew coffee or shelve books. For example, here's his report from Marc Brown's visit to Dallas in April 2012.

From the 2012 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, you can read his posts about Roy Peter Clark, Isabel Wilkerson and a roundup that  cleverly got "sex" in a web headline about narrative nonfiction.

From October, here's his Storify compilation of tweets from the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Among the events that got extended blog coverage: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jami Attenberg/Elizabeth Crane/Maria Semple,  Tim O'Brien,  Ben Fountain/David Abrams and the Literary Death Match.

Ian Frazier was there. Here's Mike's review of the excellent Cursing Mommy's Book of Days.

We're not sure why Mike is not writing in the first person today, but we will ask him next time we see him.