AFTER BOTHAM

On September 6, 2018, Dallas police officer Amber Guyger opened the door of Apartment 1478. Inside, Botham Jean lay on his couch, having hung up from the daily call with his sister, Allisa. She’d encouraged her brother to stay home for the night’s opening Dallas Cowboys game as sports bars would be too dangerous. Guyger instantly assumed the large black man watching the game was a burglar in her home. She shot him, then failed to render aid as he succumbed to the wound she’d inflicted.

Officer Guyger forever altered the lives of the hundreds who knew and loved this kind-hearted young man who lead worship at his church and worked diligently at Price Waterhouse Cooper.

In this gripping memoir, Allisa Charles-Findley shares the story of what happened to her brother and how she fought through the aftermath to find life After Botham.

REVIEWS

Publishers Weekly (full review)

“Interweaving the account with poignant memories of her brother—his gentleness, his love of music—Charles-Findley wades into the complexities of grief that persist long after headlines have faded, the internal battles it gives rise to (‘I am not quite where I want to be with God’), and the injustices of a country in which the deaths of Black people ‘have been relegated to casualties of war.’ It’s a powerful tribute.” 

Word&Way (full review)

“As we read Allisa Charles-Findley’s account in After Botham of her brother’s life and death, as well as her own struggle to make sense of it, she invites us into the struggle. She makes the person of Botham Jean real. He is more than a cause or a name on a list. He is a real person. The same is true of the author and her family. In this memoir, she brings to life the back story of the person who was killed and the family that grieves his death.”