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Peter Hernon lives near Chicago with his wife, Janice, and two daughters. An
editor for the Chicago Tribune, he has written five books and was co-author
of a bestselling book Under the Influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty . He
worked as a journalist in New Orleans.
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"A Terrible Thunder is more than just another fashionable journalistic rehashing of a crime. In its depiction of Essex's abrupt transmogrification it raises questions about the accumulated effect of petty but persistent injustices and about the individual's capacity to endure aggrievement."
--Mel Watkins, New York Times Book Review
A Terrible Thunder
The Story of the New Orleans Sniper
by Peter Hernon
isbn: 1891053485
Purchase from Amazon.com
Originally published by Doubleday in 1978.
This is the first softcover edition.
Design by IDK & Alice Gail-Carter.
284 pages. Softcover. History/Nonfiction.
Mark Essex on the roof of the
Howard Johnson |
"On December 31, 1972, revelers gathering in downtown New Orleans for the New Year's celebration found themselves running for cover as a sniper opened fire. The shooter targeted police officers, killing several over the following week before a final showdown on the roof of a hotel, where he was killed. Journalist Hernon's 1978 title unfurls the story of sniper Mark James Essex, a U.S. Navy veteran who declared war on white society. A solid title for true-crime collections." --Library Journal
Reader Comments:
"Unfortunately, he [Essex] identified and responded to 'white people' using the very tools of whiteness I am certain 
the walls of
Essex's apartment | he hated: the phenotypic stigma of skin color and hair texture coupled with the violence of overwhelming force."
--Bryan Wilhite
"... in the account of Mark Essex's anger, violence, and death, I'm compelled to see the fruitlessness of most idealism. Idealism is almost always frustrated, and, when frustrated but still pursued, often leads to violence."
--Mark A. Hershberger, Mark's full essay
"I just finished reading A Terrible Thunder. Great stuff. I had been looking for that book for over a decade."
--John McCarthy
On New Year's Eve in New Orleans, 1972, Mark James Essex began one of the most violent and deadly sniper attacks on policemen that any American city had ever seen.
It was yet another tragic journey down the road of race hatred, and before it ended one week later, hundreds of heavily armed police and a Marine Corps assault helicopter would be called to a burning downtown hotel to battle phantom gunmen who refused to surrender or to be killed.
Garrett County Press is the distinguished, award-winning publisher of Common Folk Illustrated Journal, Best of Temp Slave, For Here or To Go, Living Lost, Ivan Petrov, From Campus to Combat, Guinea Pig Zero, Little Tenement on the Volga, Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing, A Terrible Thunder: The Story of the New Orleans Sniper, Welcome to the Bethlehem Star Hotel, Voice of Leningrad and What the Hell Am I Doing Here?
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