HOMEGROWN

A riveting account of the man behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the legacy of his actions, which reverberate today.

Bestselling author Toobin describes Timothy McVeigh (1968-2001) as “the most thoroughly scrutinized criminal in American history.” Taking advantage of interviews, tapes, and correspondence that run to more than 1 million pages, the author scours his subject’s early life to create a portrait of a somewhat troubled but hardly extraordinary upbringing. He showed interest in firearms from an early age. He joined the National Rifle Association as a teenager and faithfully read its official magazine along with many right-wing publications that shared his disdain for the federal government. After several long-forgotten mass shootings, in 1994 the Senate passed a bill outlawing assault weapons, enraging gun supporters, including McVeigh. Toobin concludes that this launched him “on a full-time mission to go on the offensive against the Federal government,” and he provides an exhaustive but fascinating chronicle of a year when McVeigh—assisted by several like-minded but undependable friends—scrabbled for money, chose his target, and, following instructions in right-wing literature, assembled his bomb. Having neglected to plan his escape, he was quickly arrested, and Toobin delivers an equally gripping account of the prosecution, defense, trial, media coverage, and five years of appeals before his execution. McVeigh freely admitted planting the bomb, never expressed remorse for 168 deaths (including the children at the building’s day care center), and never stopped proclaiming that he was striking a blow for freedom. Few readers will doubt that he was a fanatic but, sadly, not a loner. During his lifetime, he moved among a dangerous fringe of gun lovers, government haters, and White supremacists. Since then, these groups have grown steadily more popular and entered the mainstream. Many serve in Congress and state legislatures; one, Toobin adds, became president. Consequently, McVeigh’s story is “not just a glimpse of the past but also a warning about the future.”

An authoritative, disheartening, depressingly relevant page-turner.