An article from the July 20, 2007 edition of
The American Prospect:
Sasha Abramsky reviews
Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant (
Crown, 288 pages)
Every so often, you pick up a book and two pages in your nose is glued to it. Not necessarily because of the subject matter per se -- though good subject matter certainly helps -- but because the prose is so damned electric.
Usually, I've found, when it comes to reportage like this, the book's author has a single name: Hunter S. Thompson. Recently, though, I've added another name to my stuck-nose lexicon, having been utterly ensnared by Joe Bageant's
Deer Hunting With Jesus.
Bageant grew up in a fundamentalist Christian, ultra-working-class family in a claustrophobic little Virginia town named Winchester. Then, in his own terminology, he made his escape. He moved west and made a pretty decent career for himself in the world of journalism. A few years ago, though, he felt a craving for his childhood home and, now deep into middle-age, decided to relocate once more.
So the self-proclaimed socialist, atheist, heavy-drinking, three-times-married Joe returned home ... (
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Labels: Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, Opinion, Progressive, Reviews, The American Prospect
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