Picador secures 'jaw-dropping' book on US gun violence by Shapira

Picador has secured Basic Pistol: Living and Dying By the Gun in America, a “jaw-dropping” study by Harel Shapira.   

Paul Martinovic, associate editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth, volume, e-book and audio rights from Sophie Lambert at C&W on behalf of Tina Bennett of Bennett Literary and Molly Atlas of ICM. Picador plans to publish Basic Pistol in summer 2024.  

The publisher wrote: “Basic Pistol takes its name from the curriculum of a popular course offered to those looking to arm themselves with a handgun, and like the course itself is structured around the three concepts that drive and sustain gun owners – fear, safety and violence. An entirely fresh insight into America’s obsession with guns and weaponry, populated by unforgettable characters and packed with staggering incidents, Basic Pistol is a powerful exploration of American violence from an exciting new voice in non-fiction.”  

Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent years immersed in the US’ gun culture. He is in the process of taking 42 firearms training classes and has spent months shadowing firearms instructors across Texas. “All this work”, the publisher wrote, “is in the service of answering one question: what does it mean to teach and learn to kill another human being?”  

Martinovic said: “Before I read Basic Pistol, I felt like I knew a lot about gun culture in the US — or more accurately, I had mentally filed the situation away as being hopelessly tied up with the second amendment, and that much of it was linked to NRA lobbying and political stubbornness. I was wrong – as Harel demonstrates, the truth is much more insidious and disturbing than that. The book completely reframes gun culture in the terms of a privileged white establishment’s encouragement of the notion that its people are entitled to kill perceived ’threats’, which is a notion that has played out with grim relevancy in the recent Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I truly believe this is an important, landmark book that I feel incredibly privileged to be bringing to UK readers.”  

Shapira added: “This book brings the reader into the lives of people who carry guns with them everywhere they go. In the process it asks us to consider what an increasingly armed society means for the future of American democracy.”