Andrew Vachss's Blog - Posts Tagged "bullying"

Tyler Clementi killed himself, and now youtube is flooded with "don't do anything drastic, it gets better" videos. Well, sometimes it doesn't get better, and sitting-and-waiting is as useless a strategy as we can imagine. So here's what Andrew Vachss suggests as a strategy.

Heart Transplant

Heart Transplant went on sale yesterday ... and promptly sold out, both online and, from what we're hearing from Zero visitors, at many brick-and-mortar locations, too. We're grateful for all the support, and apologetic for the frustration many are experiencing. To be sure, everyone is working hard to rectify the situation, and we expect the pipeline to reopen in a couple of days. In the meantime, if you're willing to wait until the end of November to read the book, you can get a copy signed by Andrew Vachss for cover price here. Again, our apologies—and our gratitude, for making this book such an overwhelming success. Heart Transplant

...and one person can make a difference.

The goal of Heart Transplant is—always has been, since Andrew, Frank and Zak conceptualized it—to recode the cultural software as it pertains to bullying. It's an effective tool for doing that, and the timing couldn't be better. But any tool left in a drawer can't get the job done.

We're not asking anyone to buy a copy. What we are asking you to do is make a bigger commitment than that. We want you to go to your local public library and ask to speak to the person in charge of purchasing books for the library. Ask that person if they were offered Heart Transplant; give them a copy of this brochure; then check in with us to let us know who you contacted and what they said.

Here is a list of those who have checked back in to let us know they got their local library to carry Heart Transplant—a list of people we respectfully call Heart Donors:

# Stephanie Bixler
# C. Dionysios Dionou (who's also with us in boycotting Yahoo! email addresses, and whose memoir about transcending childhood abuse will be coming in the next year)
# Ed Haggerty [Nashua (NH) Public Library]
# Saffron Kathryn Loynd Hall
# Barney Holmes
# Colleen J. Johnson
# Bracken MacLeod [Cambridge (MA) Public Library]
# Roland Murphy [Phoenix (AZ) Public Library]
# Tim Niland [Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library]
# Adrian O'Leary [Pikes Peak (NY) Library District and Hooked On Books]
# Thomas Pluck
# Muriel Schnierow [River Forest (IL) Public Library, and she's now working on Oak Park and Forest Park]
# David Stevens [Norfolk (VA) Public Library]
# Paul Thomas