Pull

The true story of a boy, his dad, and a gun—and surviving in a country that doesn’t always allow you to exist in the middle. This powerful graphic memoir by the acclaimed author of Proxy and the illustrator of John Lewis’s Run is for readers of Hey Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka, Ducks by Kate Beaton, and Flamer by Mike Curato.

When he was fifteen, Alex London was keeping aWhen he was fifteen, Alex London was keeping a secret. He kept it from his friends, from his conservative prep school, and from his family. Especially his dad, who tried so hard to connect with him, even as Alex pulled away. They seemed to have so little in common. Until his dad gave him a shotgun. On the skeet shooting range, that gun brought him closer to his dad, closer to feeling like a man, and to his first feelings of real excellence.

But it didn’t make him brave enough to stop hiding who he really was. And it didn’t stop him from fearing what would happen if he was found out. His gun offered another solution. One that was irreversible, irrevocable, and terrifying, just a trigger pull away. A trigger pull he couldn’t stop thinking about.

Pull is the memoir of acclaimed author Alex London, strikingly illustrated by comic artist L. Fury in an impactful two-color format. It is an (almost) coming out story, but it is also a story of surviving masculine culture in America, of our complicated relationship to guns and each other, and how a son and his father can forge a connection and learn to understand each other against all odds.