Andrew Solomon’s Interview with Peter Lanza

If you haven’t read Andrew Solomon’s interview with Peter Lanza (which appeared in The New Yorker on 3/17/2014), please take a look:

 

Andrew Solomon (who I have interviewed on this blog) is a fantastic writer, but more importantly in this case, a champion of parents and children.  Mr. Solomon’s book, Far From the Tree, provides poignant, inspiring and heart-breaking descriptions of what it is like to parent children who differ in significant ways from their parents.  It was a brilliant decision to have him interview Peter Lanza (Adam Lanza’s father).

In the interview he is caring and supportive, but doesn’t shy away from assigning some blame to Adam Lanza’s parents – after all, every child is a product of their parenting to some degree.  But he doesn’t do it in a gossipy, or a finger-pointing way.  Instead, he uses the available research on mass killings and mental health (though there is not much to be had), together with the love, pain and misunderstandings between all parents and children to help us comprehend what might have led to the tragedies of Sandy Hook.