Read Hella Nation: Looking For Happy Meals In Kandahar, Rocking The Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against The GAP, And Other Adventures With The Totally Lost Tribes Of America (2009)
Hella Nation: Looking For Happy Meals In Kandahar, Rocking The Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against The GAP, And Other Adventures With The Totally Lost Tribes Of America (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
One of the best reads I've had in quite some time. There are other living US journalists worthy of an intelligent reader's attention - John McPhee, Eric Schlosser, David Remnick - but none as funny or as ferociously engaging as Evan Wright.His work has picked up some lazy comparisons to that of Hunter S. Thompson - not always due to the Rolling Stone connection - but the comparison misleads. However wacky, deluded or bizarre his subjects (porn starlets, eco-terrorists, neo-Nazi's), the tale remains in the foreground, not the teller. Wright has a gift for the telling detail, whether comic or bittersweet, and the piercing phrase. Some favourites:'A man next to me politely passed the mustard. The bottle was sticky with KY Jelly. I never attempted to eat on a porn shoot again.''Shayla's voice was gravelly and sweet, as if her vocal cords had been marinated in whiskey sours since puberty.''The owner of the breast, an amphetamine-thin brunette with a feathered biker-chick hairdo, solemnly thanks them [Motley Crüe] and declares she is heading straight to the tattoo parlour to have their signatures gone over in indelible skin ink.'Wright's care for the people involved comes across too - quite an achievement under the circumstances, perhaps none more so than the pathetically stupid Hollywood agent Pat Dollard. Despite being a cocaine-addicted narcissist with no particular talent for anything, Dollard is somehow allowed to tag along with a band of US soldiers during the last Iraq war, intent of showing the 'bedwetters' back home 'killing is one of the most sacred and noble greatest things to go on in the world'. One feels almost like cheering when that sacred and noble thing almost decorates the nearest wall with Dollard's brains, and not by the enemy army but an American soldier fed up with his toxic presence.If I have a complaint, it's a small one: the better stories are all at the front of the book, and in his longer pieces Wright has a tendency to go off on tangents just as the story needs to knit together for the finale.Wright has also written a book called Generation Kill, about the second Iraq War. It's been compared to classics of war reportage such as Michael Herr's Dispatches - and lives up to it. I heartily recommend both. Difficult book to review as it is a collection of essay? that Evan Wright has written for various magazines throughout his colorful career. The general theme, however, seems to be about individuals and groups that carry a passion (whatever it may be) to the point of obsession. It's an interesting study and glimpse into American that is rarely seen and never exposed in the fashion that Mr. Wright does here. He is clearly a brilliant journalist. You never get an impression that he is judging his subjects, merely reflecting back to us what is going on in their lives while glimpsing at what may have brought them to where that are. These stories can at times verge on being depressing when you see such brilliance and potential sometimes being squandered because these people simply can't get out of their own way.
What do You think about Hella Nation: Looking For Happy Meals In Kandahar, Rocking The Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against The GAP, And Other Adventures With The Totally Lost Tribes Of America (2009)?
Interesting collections of stories...some were great, others dull hence my average rating.
—Elu
Great fun - the inside dope on outsiders, very well-written in an un-obtrusive way
—Netomily
Great collection of essays about those living on the fringes of society.
—Ally
Eclectic collection of essays . Interesting read .
—Gaurav
