Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Hawes delivers a wrenching account of the 2015 massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. In chilling detail, Hawes describes how Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old killer, devised and carried out his plan, murdering nine African-Americans and sparing one victim so she could “tell the story.” Hawes depicts Roof as a deeply disturbed loner with Confederate vanity plates. Many details are hard to read—Roof pulling the gun while study group members had their eyes closed for a prayer, bullet-pierced Bibles, the 911 call from the scene. As a local reporter, Hawes brings fresh insight into how this violent act impacted the community, leading South Carolina governor Nikki Haley to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from Capitol grounds and reigniting national debates about race relations and gun violence. The narrative follows the survivors, which makes for painful but moving reading; the book derives much of its power from following survivor Felicia Sanders—who ultimately switched to another church after being disappointed by Emanuel AME’s handling of the aftermath—and the grief of those whose loved ones were among the nine killed. This devastating work brings to vivid life the forces set in motion by the shooting (June)