Leesa Ross did not expect to write a book. Neither did she expect the tragedy that her family endured, a horrific and sudden death that led her to write At Close Range. Her debut memoir is the story of what happened after her son Jon died in a freak gun accident at a party. Ross unsparingly shares the complexities of grief as it ripples through the generations of her family, then chronicles how the loss of Jon has sparked a new life for her as a prominent advocate for gun safety.  Before the accident, Ross never had a motivation to consider the role that guns played in her life. Now, she revisits ways in which guns became a part of everyday life for her three sons and their friends.

Ross’s attitude towards guns is thorny. She has collectors and hunters in her family. To balance her advocacy, she joined both Moms Demand Action and the NRA. Through At Close Range, the national conversation about gun control plays out in one family’s catalyzing moment and its aftermath. However, At Close Range ultimately shows one mother’s effort to create meaning from tragedy and find a universally reasonable position and focal point: gun safety and responsible ownership.

Before reading At Close Range, I had two preconceptions: One, this is a memoir. And two, this is a book about guns and gun violence. Memoirs are not a favorite genre of mine. And the pacifist in me is certainly anti-gun. Or at least no guns for me. (I live by the you do you philosophy.) But honestly, this book is much more about a mother and family dealing with loss and grief than gun violence per se.

Ms. Ross is candid and brutally honest in her writing, giving the readers an unvarnished picture of her family, including drug use and a stint in rehab.  Ms. Ross puts her grief into action by tracking down the mystery of Jon’s accident. I imagine I would be the same. The activity helps with the healing. Or at least with the distracting. While searching for answers and interviewing witnesses, Ms. Ross starts begins heal.

Two of the most interesting chapters for me are “The New Talk” and “Boys and Guns”. As for “The New Talk”, Ms. Ross advocates for discussing gun safety with kids, while also having other difficult conversations with your kids. This is a valid point for me. No one sat me down and had any kind of conversations about how to be safe around guns. Granted, I’ve never wanted to pick up one. But I can certainly see a curious kid picking up a gun to play with it. And teaching kids how to be safe around guns is teaching them to be good citizens. As Ms. Ross states:

Which leads me to the chapter of “Boys and Guns”. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about all the guns kids play with. Water guns. Nerf guns. Guns in video games. We certainly perpetuate gun culture in our society. But this chapter is more about how Ms. Ross accepts her son Lance’s collecting of guns after Jon’s death. But it’s through Lance that we see it’s possible to be safe around guns if we want to. (We’ll leave the discussion of guns being “boys’ toys” for a later date.)

While Ms. Ross’s writing style is conversational and easy to read, the non-linear time line in chapters was a challenge for me. I would be reading one section about Ms. Ross’s children when they were young, then all the sudden it was years after Jon’s death. These transitions were jarring. I would be connecting to one scene and then be taken out of that scene completely in the next section of the novel. Maybe this is typical of the memoir genre and I’m simply not used to these novels?

Sometimes it’s worth challenging ourselves and reading outside of our comfort zone. I survived, and even more, appreciated, reading a memoir about grief. But now I’m rethinking ever giving a gun to a kid as a present, even a fake one.

Leesa Ross is a debut author who’s transformed a tragedy into a mission for safety. After losing a son to a shooting accident, she formed Lock Arms for Life, an educational organization teaching gun safety. A Texas mother of three, she leads Lock Arms, sits on the board of Texas Gun Sense, and belongs to the NRA.

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