BEN BLUM-Ranger Games

Wednesday, August 22 at 7PM

Author
BEN BLUM
speaking & signing
Ranger Games: A True Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime

In Conversation with Bryan Mealer

ABOUT RANGER GAMES

Alex Blum was a good kid with one goal in life: become a U.S. Army Ranger. Then, on the day before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery. The question that haunted the entire Blum family was, Why? Why would Alex ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way?

In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex's first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process. But as he investigated further, Ben began to question not only Alex, but the influence of his superior, Luke Elliot Sommer, the man who planned the robbery. A charismatic combat veteran, Sommer's manipulative tendencies and magnetic personality lure Ben into a relationship that puts his loyalties to the test.

ABOUT BEN BLUM

Ben Blum was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and an MFA in fiction from New York University, where he was awarded the New York Times Foundation Fellowship. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and stepdaughter.

ABOUT BRYAN MEALER

Bryan Mealer is the author of Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football’s Forgotten Town, and the New YorkTimes bestseller The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which he wrote with William Kamkwamba. He is also the author of All Things Must Fight to Live, which chronicled his years covering the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a reporter for the Associated Press and Harper’s, and his most recent work is The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Families Search for the American Dream. His work has appeared in the anthology Best American Travel Writing and was chosen for an Overseas Press Club Award Citation. He and his family live in Austin, Texas.

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