If you read Mike Mooney’s story about slain Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle in our April issue and you thought, “Man, I could read approximately 8,000 more words about that,” then you’re in luck. Next week, Little, Brown and Company will publish an expanded e-book by Mike. You can pre-order it now. Full press release:
April 18, 2013, NEW YORK—Reagan Arthur, publisher of Little, Brown and Company, announced today that Little, Brown has acquired The Life and Legend of Chris Kyle: American Sniper, Navy SEAL, an original e-book by journalist Michael J. Mooney to be published on April 23.
America has been fascinated with and has celebrated Chris Kyle—a U.S. Navy SEAL who is known as the most lethal sniper in the history of the American military—since well before Kyle was tragically shot and killed by another veteran on February 2 of this year. This desire to know much more about Kyle, and to pay proper tribute to his life, continues. On March 21, Dallas’s D Magazine published a major story about Chris Kyle by staff writer and contributor to GQ, Outside, and Grantland Michael J. Mooney, who had been spending time with Kyle and reporting intimately on him for over nine months before Kyle was killed. The Life and Legend of Chris Kyle goes beyond that magazine piece to give a fuller sense of Kyle, his life, and his death with more great and revealing stories. Mooney sheds light on Kyle working with veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, showing them going to gun ranges and ranches, bonding over guns and whiskey and the camaraderie of fellow servicemen—a rough but often effective kind of group therapy.
Mooney also shares deeply personal and previously untold stories from Kyle’s childhood, anecdotes told exclusively to Mooney by Kyle’s wife and his closest friends about him in high school, in the rodeo, and growing up with two dreams: to be a cowboy and to be in the Marines. (Kyle ended up in the SEALs simply because the Marine recruiter was out to lunch when he first came into the recruitment building.)
Mooney also breaks major news by reporting on the possibility that Kyle killed two men in self-defense in rural Texas, an event that authorities may have swept under the rug.
From fascinating and dramatic portraits of Kyle in training, in combat, and hanging out with his fellow SEALs to his struggle over the decision to leave the Navy, Mooney reveals every facet of the man. He also paints a vivid portrait of Eddie Ray Routh, the troubled twenty-five-year-old former Marine charged with the murder of Chris Kyle. As Mooney says, “It seems to me that these two very different soldiers, with profoundly different temperaments and experiences, came together in this doomed way. I wanted to tell the whole story, and that is part of the story.”
Ultimately The Life and Legend of Chris Kyle is an intimate and incredibly well-reported celebration of Kyle’s life. Mooney includes elements such as the scene at the epic memorial service at Cowboys Stadium on February 11 and the ongoing tributes to Chris Kyle that showcase his amazing life and legacy.
Little, Brown and Company executive editor John Parsley, who acquired the book, says, “Michael Mooney is an immensely talented young journalist and storyteller, and his new book offers fresh information and perspective on Chris Kyle, a man who was a legend and whose legend, now that he is sadly no longer with us, continues to grow.”
Little, Brown and Company acquired world all-language rights for an e-book from David Patterson at Foundry Literary + Media and will publish on April 23, with an audiobook edition from Hachette Audio.
About Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group. Founded in 1837, Little, Brown has long been recognized as a publisher committed to publishing fiction of the highest quality and nonfiction of lasting significance. Hachette Book Group is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest trade and educational publisher in the world.
