Alligator Candy

From journalist David Kushner, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and other premiere outlets, Alligator Candy is a reported memoir in the vein of The Night of the Gun about how a family survives an unthinkable tragedy.David Kushner grew up in the suburbs of Florida in the early 1970s, running wild with his friends, exploring, riding bikes, and disappearing into the nearby woods for hours at a time. One morning in 1973, however, everything changed. David's older brother Jon, making a trip to the local convenience store, vanished. This is the story of Jon's murder at the hands of two sadistic drifters...and everything that happened after. Alligator Candy isn't only the chronicle of Jon's death, it is also the story of how parenting in America changed, casting light on the transition between two generations of children—one raised on freedom, the other on fear. Jon's death was one of the first in what turned out...