The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic | Malcolm Gladwell's New Audiobook

Malcolm Gladwell (0:09)

Malcolm Gladwell here, I'm in your feed today to bring you a preview of my new book, The American Way of Killing, The Invention of an Epidemic, where I try to get to the bottom of America's peculiar problem with gun violence. Why is the murder rate in the US nearly three times higher than Canada's and five times higher than the murder rate in the UK and much of Western Europe? What's so different about the United States? If you want to learn why Americans so often misdiagnose the nature of the violence that plagues their streets, you can find The American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever you get your audiobooks.

Pushkin Industries and Recorded Books, an RB media audio brand, presents The American Way of Killing, The Invention of an Epidemic, written and narrated by Malcolm Gladwell. Dedication for my mother.

When I finished the first draft of this book, I sent it to my friend, the musician Drew Holcomb, and said, Do you have any music that fits the themes of this book? And he wrote me back and said I do. Once after a mass shooting where a teenager killed 18 students at an elementary school, I dropped my own kids off at their elementary school and went home and wrote a song called Troubles. And Drew said, I could use it because there is something in this song that will help you make sense of everything you're about to hear. You're going to hear snippets of Troubles throughout this audiobook. And then at the end, you'll hear the song in full. By then I hope you'll understand why I wanted you to hear it.

Introduction, 15 Funerals. On a cold and rainy winter's day not long ago, I went to see a man named Abdullah Pratt. Big beard, thick black plastic glasses, built like a linebacker. He grew up in a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, the kind that can be found in countless cities across the United States.

Abdullah Pratt (2:47)

So I think I wanted to be a doctor since the time that I was a child. I remember having the Fisher Price bag at Christmas and, you know, being three, four years old and stuff.

Malcolm Gladwell (2:55)

We sat in a small room in the basement of the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he now works. He was wearing scrubs, taking a break from his shift.

Abdullah Pratt (3:05)

I grew up in the museums. I did my first dissection of a squid at the age of like seven or eight. Those things fueled a passion for science, a passion for anatomy. And after growing up in a completely 100% African American community, I was in programs where I'd be the only African American, but I was winning awards for being the best. So it taught me that I could compete and that I could make change.

Malcolm Gladwell (3:28)

He went to college, then medical school.

He had a chance to leave his hometown, start a new life somewhere else. But he chose to come back to Chicago and practice medicine in the same neighborhood where he grew up. How many people from growing up do you know who died?

Abdullah Pratt (3:44)

I've got, I rank them by closeness to me, because if I said everybody, it'd probably be like in the 30s, 40s. But yeah, seriously, seriously, if everyone that I knew, like knew, talked with, shared time with at some point, so I really keep it to close friends, right? So if I say close friends, people who I still have the text messages in my phone, people who I know they're family members, they're mothers, they're fathers, prior to all of this, 15 friends.

My older brother is the one family member.

Malcolm Gladwell (4:15)

Abdullah's brother's name was Rashad. He was Abdullah's best friend and protector.

He was killed when he tried to stop some kids from stealing a car.

Abdullah Pratt (4:24)

My closest friend or where the day that my brother died and I said, hey, you know, I lost my brother and you're the closest thing I got to brother, that person was murdered, right? And all of them are leaving behind children. All of them were great fathers who I literally, I think many of them, our last conversations were about parenting and fatherhood.

Close teammates, right? I've had three close teammates just from my one high school team all be murdered. I've had youth that I mentored with some of the teams that I coached that were murdered. And many of them pronounced dead right in this trauma bay once we were finally able to get a trauma center.

Malcolm Gladwell (5:01)

Take out your phone. Make a list of 15 people you have texted with on a regular basis over the last few years of your life.