Sutherland Springs

February 3, 2020
Journalist Holley (Hurricane Season) delivers an extraordinarily intimate account of the 2017 mass shooting that killed 26 parishioners (including an unborn child) at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex. He profiles survivors including Sunday School teacher David Colbath, who was shot eight times and still has a bullet lodged near his heart, and details gunman Devin Patrick Kelley’s visit to the church’s annual Fall Fest days before the shooting. Holley’s harrowing description of the massacre includes the recollection of a nurse who tied tourniquets for the wounded and later told her husband that she had “felt a presence in the church” and “watched souls go home.” Congregants say the shooting hasn’t shaken their faith in God, and most remain firearms enthusiasts, though Holley notes some dissent within the church over stricter gun control measures as well as ongoing lawsuits against the U.S. Air Force (which failed to properly register Kelley’s court-martial conviction with the FBI) and the sporting goods store where he bought the assault rifle used in the shooting. Holley’s decision to conclude with a strong antigun argument strikes an off-note in a book that is otherwise deeply respectful of its subjects’ viewpoints. Nevertheless, this empathetic, finely wrought chronicle offers a revealing window into an ongoing national tragedy.

Starred review from March 1, 2020

The small Texas town of Sutherland Springs was thrust into the national spotlight following a mass shooting at First Baptist Church in November 2017. Journalist Holley (Hometown Texas) spent more than a year getting to know the town and its people in order to learn how a community can recover from tragedy, and how a church can cope with losing half of its congregation on a single morning. By staying in town long after other journalists left, Holley was able to gain the trust of many of the residents, allowing him to share their stories of not only pain and tragedy, but of deep faith and hope. Telling these stories alongside explorations of Texas gun culture and debates over gun legislation provides a personal and nuanced view on a topic where nuance is needed but rarely found. VERDICT This smoothly written account, simultaneously filled with heartbreak and hope, should be read by all who wish to understand the growing rise of these incidents. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 8/19/19.]--Michael C. Miller, Austin P.L. & Austin History Ctr., TX

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2020
Holley is a Texas journalist who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for writing about his home state's relationship with guns. Sutherland Springs is the location of a Sunday morning mass shooting that took the lives of nearly half of a small church congregation, including grandparents, children, and nine members of one family. This massacre serves as the touchpoint for exploring the ways in which religion, guns, and gun rights dovetail. After other journalists leave, Holley stays for a year, attending church, getting to know the tight-knit community of believers, from their motorcycle-riding pastor to the good guy with a gun neighbor who responded that morning. He mines the history of the area and maps the landscape of the battles around gun control to try to develop a genuine understanding of how a community devastated by violence can hold mostly unwavering faith in both God and firearms. Holley attempts to place the Texas tragedy within the larger contexts of religion, philosophy, and history, but it's the stories of the people involved that feel the most genuine and have the most impact.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)