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‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is the latest book by American journalist and writer David Grann, who ended up giving rise to Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film. However, the narrative of this book is absolutely extraordinary and much more disturbing than the feature film. It’s worth reading!
In ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, (Quetzal Editores)the journalist’s last book David Grann is a historical account, which documents, narrates and publicizes one of the most sinister crimes and one of the greatest racial injustices that occurred throughout the history of the United States, from the beginning of the 20th century. But Graan has other very interesting books published in Portugal, such as ‘The White Darkness’ (Quetzal Editores) or ‘The Lost City of Z.’ (Don Quixote)which also gave rise to the 2017 film, by director James Grayabout the tragic British explorer story Percy Fawcettwho traveled and researched in the Amazon.
This is your new book ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, It also tells the tragedy of the Osage, an indigenous tribe that was forced by the American government to give up their ancestral lands of forty million hectares, which stretched from Missouri and Lanzas to Oklahoma, to migrate to one of the most difficult and worst areas of the state from Kansas. Paradoxes of destiny, they wanted those lands imposed on the Osage, as their new territory, to be among the richest, most prosperous and valuable in the USA in the 1920s, because of the oil reserves, which were underground on their properties. This is at a time when the world begins to become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels and the spread of automobiles begins. Suddenly the Osage community became the population with the highest per capita income in the world.
To maintain the mineral heritage of their lands under their control, the Osage established a prohibition on buying or selling ‘property rights’ they held over oil reserves, which were only transmitted by inheritance. This circumstance motivated many Osage, in order to take advantage of the wealth existing on their lands, to rent them to greedy white miners who, coming from all parts of the country, sought to make the American dream a reality.
However, this economic bonanza for the Osage became a nightmare, when numerous members of the community began to die and disappear under strange circumstances, with the family of Mollie Burkhart, one of the main targets of these deaths. In this way, the investigation into the murder of his sister Anna, along with the death of Charles Whitehorn It is Henry Roan, became a huge and complex investigation that first required the intervention and collaboration of numerous private detectives, financed by the indigenous people themselves. Ultimately it was this investigation that gave rise to the creation of the well-known FBI, led by J. Edgar Hooverand his first case, tasking the inspector Thomas Whiteto begin a rigorous investigation into the strange murders and disappearances in the Osage community.
If there is anything to highlight in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is the magnificent research and documentation work carried out by David Grannbased on countless sources consulted and further highlighted by the dozens of period photographs and characters included in the book, which actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, among others, appeared in the film. Grann’s investigation is meticulous, patient and detailed, while managing to penetrate the dense layer of lies, deceit, bribery and collusion that existed, to get to the hidden truth.
David Grann approach with ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’the story of one of the most tragic, relentless and forgotten episodes in early 20th century American history, which is so disturbing and powerful that it becomes an obligation not to let it fall into oblivion and to delve deeper into it, than that cinema, despite its impact, will never achieve.
Therefore, in addition to watching the film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ by Martin Scorsese — now available on the platform Apple+ — I recommend reading this exemplary book, especially for all those who like history and mystery, as it is written at the fascinating pace of a criminal investigation, which ends up involving us and moving us, with the ambition of power and wealth, barbarity and inhumanity , which the white man did to the Osage indigenous community. With this job, David Grann was a finalist in National Boom Award and winner of Edgar Allan Poe Award.
JVM
