Son of a Gun

In Tombstone, Arizona, September 2001, Debbie St Germain is found dead in her trailer, apparently murdered at the hands of her fifth husband. For her twenty-year-old son, Justin, the tragedy marks the line that separates his world into before and after.

Long after his mother's death is 'solved', Justin still sleeps with a loaded rifle under his bed. Ultimately, he is pulled back to the desert landscape of his childhood on a search to make sense of the unfathomable. What made his mother, an ex-Army paratrooper, the type of woman who would stand up to any man except the men she was in love with? What led her to move from place to place, house to house, man to man, job to job, until finally she found herself in a desperate and deteriorating situation, living in an isolated patch of desert with an unstable ex-cop?

Justin's journey takes him back to the ghost town of Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the OK Corral, to the trailers he and Debbie shared, to the string of stepfathers who were a constant, sometimes threatening presence in his life. He confronts people from his past and delves into the police records in an attempt to make sense of his mother's life and death. All the while he tries to be the type of man she would have wanted him to be.

Brutally honest and beautifully written, Son of a Gun is a brave, unexpected and unforgettable memoir.

Auteur

Justin St. Germain was born in Philadelphia in 1981. He attended the University of Arizona and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He lives in Albuquerque and teaches at the University of New Mexico. Visit his website JustinStGermain.com

Résumé
In Tombstone, Arizona, September 2001, Debbie St. Germain is found dead in her trailer, apparently murdered by her fifth husband. For her twenty-year-old son, Justin, the tragedy marks the line that separates his world into before and after. Long after his mother's death is solved, Justin still sleeps with a loaded rifle under his bed. Ultimately, he sets out into the desert landscape of his childhood in an attempt to make sense of the unfathomable. Justin's journey takes him back to the ghost town of Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, to the trailers he and Debbie shared, to the string of stepfathers who were a constant presence in his life. He confronts people from his past and delves into the police records in an attempt to make sense of his mother's life and death. All the while he tries to be the type of man she would have wanted him to be. Brutally honest and beautifully written, Son of a Gun is a brave, unexpected and unforgettable memoir.