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Sandy Hook

An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth

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 Slate, "25 Best Crime Books, Podcasts, and Documentaries of All Time"

Vanity Fair’s “Books We Can't Stop Thinking About”

Carnegie Medal Nonfiction Longlist 2023

The Washington Post Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022

Publishers Weekly Best Books 2022

Kirkus Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022

Slate Best Books 2022

Chicago Tribune Best Books 2022

Los Angeles Times Best Books 2022

Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials, Sandy Hook is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions of online deniers and conspiracy theorists.

On December 14, 2012, a gunman killed twenty first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Ten years later, Sandy Hook has become a foundational story of how false conspiracy narratives and malicious misinformation have gained traction in society.

One of the nation’s most devastating mass shootings, Sandy Hook was used to create destructive and painful myths. Driven by ideology or profit, or for no sound reason at all, some people insisted it never occurred, or was staged by the federal government as a pretext for seizing Americans’ firearms. They tormented the victims’ relatives online, accosted them on the street and at memorial events, accusing them of faking their loved ones’ murders. Some family members have been stalked and forced into hiding. A gun was fired into the home of one parent.

Present at the creation of this terrible crusade was Alex Jones’s Infowars, a far-right outlet that aired noxious Sandy Hook theories to millions and raised money for the conspiracy theorists’ quest to “prove” the shooting didn’t happen. Enabled by Facebook, YouTube, and other social media companies’ failure to curb harmful content, the conspiracists’ questions grew into suspicion, suspicion grew into demands for more proof, and unanswered demands turned into rage. This pattern of denial and attack would come to characterize some Americans’ response to almost every major event, from mass shootings to the coronavirus pandemic to the 2020 presidential election, in which President Trump’s false claims of a rigged result prompted the January 6, 2021, assault on a bastion of democracy, the U.S. Capitol.

The Sandy Hook families, led by the father of the youngest victim, refused to accept this. Sandy Hook is the story of their battle to preserve their loved ones’ legacies even in the face of threats to their own lives. Through exhaustive reporting, narrative storytelling, and intimate portraits, Sandy Hook is the definitive book on one of the most shocking cultural ruptures of the internet era. History & Culture Media Studies Murder Social Sciences Technology & Society True Crime Crime
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Most relevant
Heartbreaking and inspiring account of the Sandy Hook tragedy and the subsequent despicable swell of online conspiracy trolling and its destructive effects. Beautifully written and performed. Excellent

Heartbreaking and Inspiring

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Read very well by Rebecca Lowman, this book is a deeply researched investigation into the shooting, and the grifters who hounded the families afterwards.

Not a comfortable read by any means, (indeed I wept multiple times while listening) but a very necessary one, to at least partially explain how the American collective psyche has reached the point where Jan 6th could happen.

A great skewering of Alex Jones and his ilk also. Brava Ms Williamson, brava.

Heartbreaking but absolutely vital

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This is one of the hardest books to listen too. I had to take several breaks in just under one hour as the material hit me too hard.

This is what should be shown, should be seen when Americas next avoidable tragedy happens.

I cant imagine any of the work that went into this was easy but thank you for doing it.

Tragic

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This is a very long book and the author has done masses of research. It comes to life when talking about the bereaved parents and their story is obviously heartbreaking. A difficult listen in that hundreds of other people are referenced and it can be a little hard to keep up.

Extensively researched

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Utterly gross dirty lies are drip fed into millions of bored or gullible minds to generate millions of dollars. The primeval pain of those whose loved ones died is ignored. Profit comes before truth. It appears to be miserably hopeless.

But brave committed bereaved parents work steadily away to redeem the memory of their children, and to prove the truth is stronger than lies if we stay the course.

Thank you courageous parents, and all who supported them.

Truth wins when energised by commitment, strategy, love, and expertise.

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