The Economist March 19th 2022 Culture 79is its bloody downfall. Adopted, like his
sister, Francis has been rescued by a lucky
shipwreck from a life of slavery. In smug
gling exploits on land and sea, the siblings
press thrillingly close to “the dangerous
edge of things” (a favourite phrase of Gra
ham Greene’s). Yet for all her bravado in
scraps with hapless troopers, or on “guinea
runs” to pilfer foreign gold, Goody’s gnaw
ing unease about her behaviour grows. Her
guilt complicates and darkens a story
packed with wellcrafted action scenes.
The tale is told with exhilarating colour,
flair and pace. If Goody’s “mongrel record
of a hybrid life” edges close to realism—in
episodes of pregnancy and childbirth, or
its unblinking eye on the cruelty of smug
gling clans—it soon sets sail again on the
high seas of romance. On one level “Win
chelsea” isa pasticheofa pastiche:a tri
buteto centuryoldrevivalsofGeorgian
prose.ButGoody’s“wondrousandfantas
tical”storytakesreadersintounexpected
territory,includinga foraytotheScottish
Highlands,thedoomedrebellionof 1745
anda neighbouringliterarygenre,theJac
obiteadventureromp.MrPrestonwears
histricornehatwithpanache. n
TheSandyHookmassacre
From the fringes
T
heywerehidingina bathroomwhen
he arrived. On December 14th 2012, 20
yearold Adam Lanza fired more than 80
bullets through the door, killing 15 children
while he laughed. When the medical ex
aminer arrived to retrieve the bodies,
crayon drawings of the firstgraders’ “fu
ture selves” hung on a board labelled
“Hopes and Dreams” inside the classroom.
December will mark ten years since
Lanza murdered 20 children and six staff
members at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut. Over the
past decade the scope of the tragedy has
grown, not diminished. Today the words
“Sandy Hook” evoke not just the massacre,
but also a turningpoint in America’s long
flirtation with conspiracy theories.
A new book by Elizabeth Williamson, a
journalist at the New York Times, describes
the collective delusion and malice of con
spiracists who denied that the shooting
happened or asserted that it was a govern
ment plot to stoke antigun sentiment.
Parents who lost their children were
stalkedbypeoplewhocalled them liars;
who argued that their children never exist
ed; who demanded that their bodies
should be exhumed for proof. “Sandy
Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle
for Truth” also shows how these hoaxers,
and the platforms that helped them, creat
ed a “conspiratorialindustrial complex”
that has eroded American democracy.
America is no stranger to conspiracy
theories. Some believe the footage of the
moon landing was faked, Lyndon Johnson
was involved in President John F. Kenne
dy’s assassination, and the twin towers
were brought down on September 11th 2001
by explosives rather than hijacked planes.
But until relatively recently these ideas
swirled at the fringes of society. Ms Wil
liamson convincingly argues that no one
person epitomises conspiracism’s leakage
into the mainstream more than Alex Jones,
the rightwing conspiracymonger and
creator of Infowars, a website.
Mr Jones was a local eccentric in the
1990s, a creature of radio and publicaccess
television in Austin, Texas. As the internet
took off, social media and audio streaming
catapulted him to national fame and, later,
into the orbit of Donald Trump, then a
presidential candidate, who was inter
viewed by Mr Jones for Infowars in 2015. In
the middle of Mr Jones’s rise was Sandy
Hook. For years, beginning on the very day
of the shooting, Mr Jones variously assert
ed that the massacre was a government
plot, that it never happened and that griev
ing parents were “crisis actors”.
Mr Jones’s culpability is clear. He has
lost several defamation lawsuits by default
after refusing to hand over documents re
quired by the courts. Late last year judges
in Texas and Connecticut ruled that he and
Infowars are liable to pay damages to the
families of ten victims. David McCraw, a
lawyer for the New York Times, told Ms Wil
liamson that the legal proceedings were
tantamount to “fake news on trial”. The author nudges readers to think
broadly about who is responsible for per
petuating the idea that Sandy Hook was a
hoax. There are three kinds of villains in
the story. The first is the shooter himself,
who killed his mother, 26 people and final
ly himself. The second are conspiracists
such as Mr Jones, who either truly doubted
that the massacre happened, or used the
episode to gain money and influence (Mr
Jones’s riches come from peddling diet
supplements on Infowars). Third are the
socialmedia platforms, whose algorithms
facilitated the spread of outrageous and
hateful content because those posts boost
engagement. If outrage begets clicks, and
clicks beget influence and money, then
hucksters including Mr Jones are incentiv
ised to follow their worst impulses.
One of the book’s most revealing con
clusions is not about the massacre at all,
but conspiracism’s place in America today.
Some of Mr Jones’s associates are members
of the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys, far
right groups that stormed the United States
Capitol building on January 6th 2021. Many
of the same websites and conspiracists
that spewed nonsense about Sandy Hook
abandoned truth in service of the “Big Lie”
that Mr Trump actually won the presiden
tial election of 2020. Truth be known
Perhaps the most eloquent voice in Ms Wil
liamson’s account of Sandy Hook is Vero
nique De La Rosa, whose sixyearold son,
Noah Pozner, was killed in the shooting.
Near the end of the book, Ms De La Rosa
compares conspiracism to a virus. It is con
stantly mutating, becoming endemic in a
society that deals in “alternative facts”.
Combating conspiracy theories is like a
game of whackamole: debunk one per
son, take down one post, and five more pop
up in its place. Infowars’ tagline says:
“There’s a war on for your mind.” About
that, if nothing else, the website is right.nSandy Hook: An American Tragedy and
the Battle for Truth. By Elizabeth
Williamson. Dutton; 496 pages; $28
Acts of remembrance