Elegy for a Gone Boy

A father searches for meaning in his son's murder

Gregory Gibson and I met 36 years ago as freshmen at Swarthmore College. Greg was 18--the same age his elder son Galen had reached in 1992 when he was slaughtered in an act of senseless violence. Galen was in his second year at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, Mass., when a fellow student named Wayne Lo went berserk and shot up the campus with a cheap imported rifle, killing Galen and a teacher and wounding four others. Ever since then, Greg has struggled to wrest some meaning from this tragedy, and I think he has succeeded. His powerful book about...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!