Heather Ann Thompson will tell the story of the infamous New York subway shooting of 1984 in a new book.
Pantheon will publish the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian’s Fear and Fury: Bernie Goetz, the Reagan ’80s, and the Rebirth of White Rage next year, the press announced in a news release. It calls the book “masterful” and “groundbreaking.”
The book will tell the story of Bernhard Goetz, who shot four Black teenagers in a New York subway car. He fled the city afterward and later turned himself in, claiming he acted in self-defense. He was tried and acquitted on all charges, except one, carrying an unlicensed firearm, and sentenced to a year in jail. One of the teenagers he shot, Darrell Cabey, later sued Goetz and won a $43 million judgement against him.
Thompson won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2016 book, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called that book “impressively authoritative and thoughtfully composed.”
Pantheon says of her new book, “Drawing from never-before-seen and archival interviews, newspaper accounts, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on the social and political conditions which set the stage for these events, delving into the lives of Goetz and his four victims—Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.”
Fear and Fury is slated for publication on February 10, 2026.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
