This fine book sheds a devastating light on Bush & Co.'s notorious 'base, ' i.e. America's white working class, whose members have been ravaged by the very party that purports to take their side--Mark Crispin Miller, author of "Fooled Again."

Reviews

In this trenchant, aggravating, humorous, and heartbreaking book, Bageant, whose blog, www.joebageant.com, has a bit of a cult following, uses a combination of political commentary, reporting, and storytelling to explore what he describes as an unacknowledged class war in the United States. Returning after 30 years to the "dirt-poor" neighborhoods of his native Winchester, VA, Bageant examines the lives of the working poor using the stories of his friends and neighbors. Through these bleak tales, he paints a picture of a permanent underclass exploited by the Right and forgotten or even disdained, by the Left. Bageant explores, among other things, gun culture, Christian fundamentalism, predatory mortgage lending, illiteracy, outsourcing, and the decline of the American healthcare system. Written as a wake-up and rallying call for progressives, the work is decidedly partisan. Bageant's writing is witty, bilious, tender, and cruel by turns. Though his style often engages, it also alienates. His perspective is so fresh and his message so important that it is frustrating that many readers may be put off by his approach. The book would have benefited from closer editing; it is a slim volume but could stand to be leaner still. Recommended for collections with a current affairs focus, especially those in public libraries.-Rachel Bridgewater, Washington State Univ. Lib., Vancouver Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

"Joe Bageant is a brilliant writer. He evokes working class America like no one else. The account of his revisit to his Virginia roots is sobering, poignant, and instructive."
--Howard Zinn, author of "A People's History of the United States"
"This book is righteous, self-righteous, exhilarating, and aggravating. By God, it's a raging, hilarious, and profane love song to the great American redneck. As a blue state man with a red state childhood, I have been waiting for this book for years. We ignore its message at our peril."
--Sherman Alexie, author of "Reservation Blues"
"This fine book sheds a devastating light on Bush & Co.'s notorious 'base, ' i.e. America's white working class, whose members have been ravaged by the very party that purports to take their side. Meanwhile, the left has largely turned them out, or even laughed at their predicament. Of their degraded state--and, therefore, ours--Joe Bageant writes like an avenging angel."
--Mark Crispin Miller, author of "Fooled Again: The "Real Case" for Election Reform"
"Joe Bageant is the Sartre of Appalachia. His white-hot bourbon-fuelled prose shreds through the lies of our times like a weed-whacker in overdrive. "Deer Hunting with Jesus" is a deliciously vicious and wickedly funny chronicle of a thinking man's life in God's own backwoods."
--Jeffrey St. Clair, author of "Grand Theft Pentagon" and co-editor of CounterPunch
"This recounting of lost lives--of white have-nots in one of our most have-not states--has the power of an old-time Scottish Border ballad. It is maddening and provocative that the true believers in 'American exceptionalism' and ersatz machismo side with those stepping all over them. Bageant's writing is as lyrical as Nelson Algren's, and if there's a semblance of hope, it's that he catches on with new readers thanks to the alternative media."
--Studs Terkel
""Deer Hunting with Jesus" is one of those rare books that is colorful, depressing, i