On a frigid winter's night in 1973, William "Rabbit" Wells, a young man of mixed race, was shot and killed by a white policeman named William Sorgie outside a bar in Bernardsville, New Jersey. The shooting, which was later ruled an accident, stunned the inhabitants of Bernardsville and neighboring Basking Ridge.

Loizeaux revisits that fateful night in a haunting memoir that speaks to us all. With clear-eyed compassion and unsparing honesty, The Shooting of Rabbit Wells recreates the lives of both victim and killer and the forces that brought them together. By giving us the life of Rabbit Wells, Loizeaux makes us understand - and feel - how unacceptable and irreparable its loss was, and how deeply the bullet that killed him is lodged in the American identity.