The New Yorker staff writer and author David Grann visited campus yesterday to discuss his new book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. The presentation featured original photographs of the events illustrated in the book that Grann compiled over five years of research.
The book details a string of Osage targeted murders, racial injustices and the FBI investigation that followed. Killers of the Flower Moon has been hailed by newspapers and magazines across the country as one of the best non-fiction books of 2017. Its success even caught the attention of Martin Scorsese, whose film adaptation of the book is currently in pre-production and is slated to star Leonardo DiCaprio.
“When I tell this story, I really hope to show these photographs so that people get a sense of who these people were and what their lives were like and hopefully try to understand history through their eyes,” Grann said. “I hope to talk about how the past informs the present and how it can deepen our understanding of today, whether it be what’s happening with the FBI today or the protests at Standing Rock over the [Dakota] Access Pipeline.”
The event was sponsored by the UW College of Law and the 10th Circuit Historical Society. Issues discussed in the book are of particular interest to students in the college of law.
“From our perspective, a lot of our students are interested in the legal side of tribal law and those issues and obviously the fact that this case was instrumental in the formation of the FBI,” Director of Communications at the college of law Christine Reed said.
The 10th Circuit Historical Society is a non-profit organization with the goal of sharing and preserving the history of the 10th circuit and the law that has defined the region.
Paul Hickey, a Cheyenne lawyer and one of several Wyoming representatives on the society’s board of directors, discussed the importance of working with the college of law to bring Grann to UW.
“I had a chance to suggest that Dean Alexander consider David Grann, the author of the New York Times Bestseller, as something that would be of interest because of the very important Wind River Reservation Native American communities that we have with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho and an appreciation for Native American issues in our state,” Hickey said.
The message of social and historical justice is one that Grann aims to express in his writing as well as in his presentation today.
“This is one [story] that tells a much larger story about the country,” Grann said. “Even today, to understand the present you need to understand the past.”
Mr. Grann gave a lecture on his book followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. The event took place yesterday at noon in the college of law, room 178.
