The Mural: A Novel

Based on the murder of nineteen children and two teachers in the Robb Elementary School shooting, The Mural explores themes of violent radicalism, generational trauma, cancel culture, and the healing power of art through the experiences of a muralist and his lover.

He shot Granny in the face then murdered nineteen children and two teachers at Grape Valley Elementary School in far West Texas. So begins The Mural, Pulitzer-nominated war correspondent and author Sid Balman’s fictional account of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that shook the US to its core.

The Mural is told from the perspective of Jasper Losoya, an artist from the fictional West Texas town of Grape Valley who is commissioned, along with others, to paint commemorative murals of the victims of a recent mass shooting in the town square. When he initially receives news of the tragedy, Losoya is at work restoring an ancient mural in Pompeii with his assistant, Coraline Larkin, a young Irish woman who lost her hearing and her father in a Belfast bombing when they receive news of the mass murder. Once he sets to work on the mural, Losoya’s art sparks a controversy over censorship and cancel culture that lands in the US Supreme Court, dividing a “half-mast nation” as it lurches from one trauma to another.

Penned by the author of the award-winning Seventh Flag trilogy, The Mural is an unforgettable journey through the modern American West—and a cautionary tale for the entire nation.