I'm thrilled to share the news of the forthcoming December publication of Insurrection by the brilliant young Seattle-based photojournalist Nate Gowdy, with an Introduction by yours truly. The book is a powerful photo essay of what he saw on January 6th, 2021 while shooting the riot for Rolling Stone. Gowdy's work has appeared in numerous international venues including CNN, Die Zeit, Fisheye, Al-Jazeera, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Mother Jones, Vice, and the cover of TIME. Earlier this fall I was invited to write an introductory essay for the book. I readily agreed. Given my longstanding admiration for his work, I would be tempted to call it a "dream collaboration," except it isn't really a collaboration at all: like the best photojournalism, Gowdy's work has always told a resonant, sometimes frightening American story without the benefit of any words. I was honoured to be asked to contribute mine. That said, after a decade of focusing primarily on fiction, I confess I enjoyed returning to my professional roots as a journalist, essayist, and political culture critic in the service of this beautiful visual record of one of the darkest days in recent American history.
