One of those citizens, Ellen DeLay, steps a little too far outside the norm and becomes what it's dangerous to be: an outsider. To Ellen, everything she does is for a good reason: she leaves her happy, twenty-five-year marriage to live alone in the woods because her husband locked her in his tool chest for three days; she dresses hunters' game -- bears, deer, moose -- in the nude to save on laundry; she periodically fires her rifle (in the air) to scare off teenagers come to taunt the "crazy woman". Unconventional, yes. Psychotic, no.So there's no good reason for Ellen to end up riddled with bullets -- two hundred rounds -- fired at her point-blank by four well-armed officers of the law, all women. "Just another nut gunned down", explains their leader, who's about to get away with murder.This is a strange, haunting, provocative, and, ultimately, very moving novel. Set in the rural hinterlands where police violence might once have seemed unlikely, "An American Outrage" turns out to be an all too familiar American story. G. K. Wuori's Quillifarkeag, Maine, is right in step with America's nightmarish headlines. This novel asks, who's headlines. This novel asks, who's safe?