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Description
AUTHOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS, CANDYFREAK AND AGAINST FOOTBALL - In the BESTSELLING, BAD STORIES, Steve Almond will help you understand, What the hell just happened to our country?
"I was enlightened and spellbound by Bad Stories, outraged and consoled."--Cheryl Strayed - "A welcome change of pace from its mostly wonky competitors."--Washington Post - "Unfold some timely insights and avenues into the despair stalking American public life."--Publishers Weekly - "Almond holds up literature as a guide through America's age-old moral dilemmas and finds hope for his country in family, forgiveness, and political resistance."--Booklist Online
Like a lot of Americans, Steve Almond spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. The problem wasn't just the election, but the fact that nobody could explain, in any sort of coherent way, why America had elected a cruel, corrupt, and incompetent man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is Almond's effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices--from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin--to help explain the roots of our moral erosion as a people.
The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. To understand how we got here, we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. Bad Stories is a lamentation aimed at providing clarity. It's the book you can pass along to an anguished fellow traveler with the promise, This will help you understand what the just hell happened to our country.
Product Details
| Publisher | Red Hen Press |
| Publish Date | April 01, 2018 |
| Pages | 272 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781597092265 |
| Dimensions | 8.0 X 5.0 X 0.8 inches | 0.7 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
It's a rare writer who has the power to make one aware in every paragraph of the moral necessity of literature, but in Bad Stories, Steve Almond has done just that. With fierce intelligence, moving candor, and dazzling insight, Almond draws on everything from The Grapes of Wrath to the voting practices of his babysitter to dismantle the false narratives about American democracy that got us into the political pickle we're in. I was enlightened and spellbound by Bad Stories, outraged and consoled. This is a profound and essential book for all time, but especially for now.
--Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
Steve Almond['s] ... book is notable not so much for advancing new ideas but for synthesizing almost every major argument about what ails our country--including, among much else, racism, xenophobia and rampant economic inequality--and for offering a response to each. ... Almond is an excellent prose stylist, and his book is a welcome change of pace from its mostly wonky competitors.
--Chris Carroll, Washington Post
Taking storytelling as a basic human need, Almond's commendable goal is to make room for the invention of better stories that draw on humanity's finer instincts: generosity over greed, patience or curiosity over blind loyalty or rage. ... these essays unfold some timely insights and avenues into the despair stalking American public life.
--Publishers Weekly
With the same biting wit that marks Almond's previous books of social criticism ... he casts equal blame on both the left and the right, bitingly criticizing, for example, liberal comedians such as Jon Stewart and Bill Maher for making light of Trump while basking in their glowing reviews. Almond holds up literature as a guide through America's age-old moral dilemmas and finds hope for his country in family, forgiveness, and political resistance.
--Jonathan Fullmer, Booklist Online
Bad Stories is a huge, readable 237-page revelation of profound insights gleaned from connecting dots that we-the-people largely prefer not to see.
--Betsy Robinson, Notes from a Crusty Seeker
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