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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
3.5/5: We definitely are way past the “journalist tries to understand what’s happening re: Trump” saturation threshold. However Sharlet’s experience writing about religion, his weaving in of the personal, and the caliber of his writing (thoughtful, intellectual) elevate it beyond the NYT “rural diner” beat.
But ultimately he’s still doing that and the time to figure out what happened is at least 30 years too late.
The essays at the beginning and end (about Harry Belafonte and Lee Hays, respectively) are great
But ultimately he’s still doing that and the time to figure out what happened is at least 30 years too late.
The essays at the beginning and end (about Harry Belafonte and Lee Hays, respectively) are great
At this point, a book with dispatches from Angry White America is entering a very crowded field. There were some moments in this one that shined through, but it is not one of the stronger efforts. The essays are mostly structured around Sharlet driving across the US and asking random, angry-looking white people what they think about Ashley Babbitt, then writing very stylized accounts of how ridiculous those conversations were. A lot of this felt like exoticizing extremists for people who wanted to reinforce what they already believe.
The scenes from the US coming undone are sandwiched between profiles of two black musicians from decades ago that Sharlet finds inspirational. This structure was clearly an intentional choice that didn't really work for me (although the first essay -- the one about Harry Belafonte, is probably the best part of the whole book.)
It's hard to say how much of my reaction to this was just from sheer exhaustion about this topic. The fact I even picked it up is evidence of how much I've become addicted to feeling bad. But those looking for a US descent into madness centered on January 6th etc would do better with Luke Mogelson's The Storm Is Here
The scenes from the US coming undone are sandwiched between profiles of two black musicians from decades ago that Sharlet finds inspirational. This structure was clearly an intentional choice that didn't really work for me (although the first essay -- the one about Harry Belafonte, is probably the best part of the whole book.)
It's hard to say how much of my reaction to this was just from sheer exhaustion about this topic. The fact I even picked it up is evidence of how much I've become addicted to feeling bad. But those looking for a US descent into madness centered on January 6th etc would do better with Luke Mogelson's The Storm Is Here
Reminded me (in a good way) of Travels With Charley, although this book is a bit more terrifying and is missing a poodle.
Last year when I visited the US I read "How Civil Wars Start," which was completely terrifying. This book is a companion that shows the human side of radicalization. But neither book can answer the question: how does the country step back from all this?
Last year when I visited the US I read "How Civil Wars Start," which was completely terrifying. This book is a companion that shows the human side of radicalization. But neither book can answer the question: how does the country step back from all this?
challenging
informative
tense
medium-paced
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I foolishly brought this book along with me to King's Island for the end of the year eighth grade school bash. I'd thought: "I'll just do a bit of light reading at a coffeeshop," not realizing that my fellow teachers chaperoning the field trip would ask about the odd little book I'd had tucked under my arm, photographs of Ashli Babbitt's knife on an evidence table and a dusty rural church adorning the cover.
I'd first seen Jeff Sharlet's work on Netflix's "The Family," detailing the secretive religious organization that has captured the devotion of many members of congress. And here he was again, on the New York Times list of best new books--this one nonfiction: a sort of journalistic venture, part scrapbook of rambling journal entries and interview logs, a cross-country narrative and biography and memoir all in one.
The book held a lot of promise. I was eager to begin reading it as soon as I'd seen a colleague begin it. I'm still piecing together whether I believe the promise was borne out.
As I'd mentioned, Sharlet's work takes multiple forms. The structure is interesting to say the least, sometimes genre-shifting amidst a unique tone and syntax. Frequently, this tonal syntax feels incoherent, or perhaps less incoherent than talentedly inducing whiplash in the reader. Sharlet, in an attempt at authenticity, writes casually, almost seeming to flirt with edginess. His sentences often feel like rambling paragraph-length run-ons that are really just multiple fragments of asides in stream-of-conscious succession. The tone in places was refreshing, in others it was distracting if not a little too experimental. It's longform journalistic portfolio meets personal memo inner-dialogue.
Format, structure, and writing aside, the book explores the "It" that everyone in the U.S. knows about but gets tired of talking about. Civil war, or a quiet one, the cultural reckoning we see playing out in the nation today. By bookending the piece with mini-biographies of Harry Belafonte and Lee Hays, Sharlet reminds us that this "silent civil war" is not something new. Or at least, it's not something that came out of nowhere. By traveling across the country and interviewing those once seen as the fringe but now in the mainstream of the conservative political movement and the modern Republican Party--in churches who tout guns and power, at a rally for Ashli Babbitt (the woman killed on January 6th after storming the Capitol), at gas stations, homes, and roads in rural communities across America--Sharlet lays bare the mindsets of the divide for the world to see.
Some could lodge criticism of Sharlet that through the interviews in this book he platforms ideas based solely on conspiratorial thinking and not on fact in a way that gives the extremism of these left-behind individuals center stage. But I think his point lies somewhere in the murky reflection that, so far, the reaction to these once-fringe groups and their extremism has been unsuccessful, or at least weak. The book goes far in the light it shines on just how far the divides of our nation have gone, just how outlandish and pertinent the ideas of Whiteness and feelings of self-persecutorial individuals are in affecting society.
In a sort of cliché, I kept reading the words of these individuals who are objectively detached from fact-based reality with a sense of loss, despite that reality won't slow down to make way for their misunderstandings. How sad it is to me that corporations and the exact "conservative policies" these individuals sold their souls and shrinking communities to are the very things destroying them. Yet, because of changing culture and the knee-jerk reactions of generation after generation--and I suppose the inherent aversity to change brought about by a cultural narrative of grievance and scarcity--they continue to grope around in the dark for someone or something to blame. Hence, they go for those already most vulnerable: people of Color, the LGBTQ+ community, poor people (including themselves). So much could be solved if they simply visited a city and met the similar people they've come to villainize. They've been sold a lie that has morphed into myth. And now that myth, though still shrinking, is sitting on a literal keg of gunpowder.
And somewhere along the way, the grievance has led to outlandish conspiracy theories. It has led to cultural "who's in and who's out." It has led to a glorification of supposed coming violence and apocalyptic imagery brought forth by the utter fusion of the political Right and theologically-conservative evangelical/Pentecostal American Christianity. It's a precipice I don't know we can step back from. No doubt, reading this book will give you a sense of what people are saying in those places we may drive through without thinking.
What it means for the imminence of physical violence or just more cultural retribution, it's hard to say. Sharlet offers mere sentiments of bleak reality rather than tangible answers. I only hope one day it can find itself acknowledged fully and addressed, pages of a history that somehow we made it through with something better on the other side.
I'd first seen Jeff Sharlet's work on Netflix's "The Family," detailing the secretive religious organization that has captured the devotion of many members of congress. And here he was again, on the New York Times list of best new books--this one nonfiction: a sort of journalistic venture, part scrapbook of rambling journal entries and interview logs, a cross-country narrative and biography and memoir all in one.
The book held a lot of promise. I was eager to begin reading it as soon as I'd seen a colleague begin it. I'm still piecing together whether I believe the promise was borne out.
As I'd mentioned, Sharlet's work takes multiple forms. The structure is interesting to say the least, sometimes genre-shifting amidst a unique tone and syntax. Frequently, this tonal syntax feels incoherent, or perhaps less incoherent than talentedly inducing whiplash in the reader. Sharlet, in an attempt at authenticity, writes casually, almost seeming to flirt with edginess. His sentences often feel like rambling paragraph-length run-ons that are really just multiple fragments of asides in stream-of-conscious succession. The tone in places was refreshing, in others it was distracting if not a little too experimental. It's longform journalistic portfolio meets personal memo inner-dialogue.
Format, structure, and writing aside, the book explores the "It" that everyone in the U.S. knows about but gets tired of talking about. Civil war, or a quiet one, the cultural reckoning we see playing out in the nation today. By bookending the piece with mini-biographies of Harry Belafonte and Lee Hays, Sharlet reminds us that this "silent civil war" is not something new. Or at least, it's not something that came out of nowhere. By traveling across the country and interviewing those once seen as the fringe but now in the mainstream of the conservative political movement and the modern Republican Party--in churches who tout guns and power, at a rally for Ashli Babbitt (the woman killed on January 6th after storming the Capitol), at gas stations, homes, and roads in rural communities across America--Sharlet lays bare the mindsets of the divide for the world to see.
Some could lodge criticism of Sharlet that through the interviews in this book he platforms ideas based solely on conspiratorial thinking and not on fact in a way that gives the extremism of these left-behind individuals center stage. But I think his point lies somewhere in the murky reflection that, so far, the reaction to these once-fringe groups and their extremism has been unsuccessful, or at least weak. The book goes far in the light it shines on just how far the divides of our nation have gone, just how outlandish and pertinent the ideas of Whiteness and feelings of self-persecutorial individuals are in affecting society.
In a sort of cliché, I kept reading the words of these individuals who are objectively detached from fact-based reality with a sense of loss, despite that reality won't slow down to make way for their misunderstandings. How sad it is to me that corporations and the exact "conservative policies" these individuals sold their souls and shrinking communities to are the very things destroying them. Yet, because of changing culture and the knee-jerk reactions of generation after generation--and I suppose the inherent aversity to change brought about by a cultural narrative of grievance and scarcity--they continue to grope around in the dark for someone or something to blame. Hence, they go for those already most vulnerable: people of Color, the LGBTQ+ community, poor people (including themselves). So much could be solved if they simply visited a city and met the similar people they've come to villainize. They've been sold a lie that has morphed into myth. And now that myth, though still shrinking, is sitting on a literal keg of gunpowder.
And somewhere along the way, the grievance has led to outlandish conspiracy theories. It has led to cultural "who's in and who's out." It has led to a glorification of supposed coming violence and apocalyptic imagery brought forth by the utter fusion of the political Right and theologically-conservative evangelical/Pentecostal American Christianity. It's a precipice I don't know we can step back from. No doubt, reading this book will give you a sense of what people are saying in those places we may drive through without thinking.
What it means for the imminence of physical violence or just more cultural retribution, it's hard to say. Sharlet offers mere sentiments of bleak reality rather than tangible answers. I only hope one day it can find itself acknowledged fully and addressed, pages of a history that somehow we made it through with something better on the other side.
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced