A leading publisher has signed on to publish a book from Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, covering—you guessed it—the recent bombings in Boston, Massachusetts with a focus on the Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan, who died in a firefight with police. As Dzhokhar is still being held by police and has been charged federally, facing the death penalty, the book is still in its infancy.
Because the book has just been announced, no title or potential date of release has been decided on, yet. According to Jynne Martin, a spokesperson for Riverhead Books (a division of Penguin), it could still be a while before audiences are privy to Gessen’s in depth book. Martin also noted to The Wall Street Journal, this could be because Gessen wants to be as detailed as possible in her work.
“It’s not clear how long it will take to get the access required to write the thoughtful and comprehensive book that she wants to write. But she’s probably the only fully bilingual journalist who has contacts in Dagestan, which has been war-torn for years.”
In a similar manner, Riverhead told USA Today that the book will cover the life in Dagestan the young boys grew up in and will then switch perspectives to the United States, where the Tsarnaev brothers spent plenty of time in a peaceful environment. It will also attempt to define why the brothers came to the decision to become terrorists and drop bombs during the Boston Marathon.
In the time it takes Gessen to complete her novel, no doubt the one surviving Tsarnaev brother will be tried in court and face whatever penalty that is decided for the young man if he is found guilty. If the market isn’t saturated already with similar works, Gessen’s could prove to be a popular read. This won’t be Gessen’s first work. In 2012, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. The subject should be something Gessen is at least a little familiar with. The journalist immigrated to the US in her teens, moving to Boston, Massachusetts where the tragedies later occurred.
