Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

University of Texas Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: From a Taller Tower
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

From a Taller Tower

The Rise of the American Mass Shooter
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2021

About this book

We, as a nation, have become desensitized to the shock and pain in the wake of mass shootings. In the bottomless silence between gunshots, as political stalemate ensures inaction, the killing continues; the dying continues. From a Taller Tower attends to the silence that has left us empty in the aftermath of these atrocities. Veteran journalist Seamus McGraw chronicles the rise of the mass shooter to dismantle the myths we have constructed around the murderers and ourselves.

In 1966, America’s first mass shooter, from atop the University of Texas tower, unleashed a new reality: the fear that any of us may be targeted by a killer, and the complicity we bear in granting these murderers the fame or infamy they crave. Addressing individual cases in the epidemic that began in Austin, From a Taller Tower bluntly confronts our obsession with the shooters—and explores the isolation, narcissism, and sense of victimhood that fan their obsessions. Drawing on the experiences of survivors and first responders as well as the knowledge of mental health experts, McGraw challenges the notion of the “good guy with a gun,” the idolization of guns (including his own), and the reliability of traumatized memory. Yet in this terrible history, McGraw reminds us of the humanity that can stop the killing and the dying.

Author / Editor information

Seamus McGraw is a journalist and frequent contributor to the New York Times op-ed page, as well as to the Huffington Post, Playboy, Popular Mechanics, and Fox Latino. He is the author of The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone, Betting the Farm on a Drought: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change, and A Thirsty Land: The Fight for Water in Texas.

Reviews

It is a terrible testament to the frequency of [mass shootings] over the last couple of decades that for those of us not directly affected, some of them tend to blur. From a Taller Tower offers a clearheaded and thoughtful analysis of these crimes, and our culture.
— The American Conservative

A memorable, necessary contribution to the national conversation on gun violence.
— Kirkus, Starred Review

A deeply reported examination of the many mass shootings in the United States...The book attempts to unpack our responses to these crimes and explain what’s missing from our understanding of these events, while also revealing more about who is behind these atrocities.
— She Reads

[From a Taller Tower] traces the history of the American mass shooter and the troubling ways we make sense of senseless violence...There’s a tragic timeliness to McGraw’s book.
— Inside Hook

From a Taller Tower is a careful, even cathartic, look at mass shooters­­ and the culture that ushers them forth. McGraw dispels the myths “forged in gunfire” with a riveting examination of the before, during, and after of mass shootings.
— Amye Archer, co-editor of If I Don’t Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings

One of the most important books you can read this or any year. It’s impossible to read this work without nodding or wincing or even crying.
— Patrick Skinner, detective, Savannah, Georgia

An important and extraordinary book that takes us into the mind of the mass shooter and also explores our own complicity in the numbing tragedies that have become far too routine in America. Still, Seamus McGraw manages to leave us with hope that there's a way out of the despair.

 
— Perri Pelitz, director and producer, Axios on HBO

[From a Taller Tower] details how our culture of rage, victimhood, narcissism and love of guns has created an onslaught of violence that’s almost impossible to keep up with…[a] powerful new book.
— MEL Magazine

From a Taller Tower traces the history of the American mass shooter — at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland — without giving in to the notoriety that so many of them seek. With few exceptions, the murderers are never named. Instead, the book examines the beliefs many Americans hold onto about guns, mass shootings and mental illness, and confronts the circumstances that allow these catastrophes to continue.
— NPR

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    v
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Author’s Note

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Prologue. The Deepest Silence There Is

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 1 The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

    11
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 2 Deliver Us from Evil

    29
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 3 To Kill the Last Killer

    49
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 4 “’Tis Not Alone My Inky Cloak ”

    73
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 5 Jokers Wild

    97
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 6 If You See Something, Say Something

    125
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 7 A Good Guy with a Gun

    139
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 8 I Cling to My Gun, You Cling to Yours

    157
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 9 The Fog of War in Peacetime

    173
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 10 From a Taller Tower

    191
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Epilogue. The Silence between Gunshots

    201
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Acknowledgments

    213
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    219
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    229
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 11, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9781477322635
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.7560/317181
eBook ISBN: 9781477322635
Keywords for this book
gun violence; gun control; guns; mass shootings; mass shooting; school shootings; violence; gun rights; hate crimes; shooting; cultural history; communal violence
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
Downloaded on 13.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7560/317181/html
Scroll to top button