Deer Hunting with Jesus
Dispatches from America’s Class War by Joe Bageant
“This was quite an eye–opening book for me.”
Years before Hillbilly Elegy and White Trash, a raucous, truth–telling look at the white working poor —and why they have learned to hate liberalism. What it adds up to, Bageant asserts, is an unacknowledged class war. By turns tender, incendiary, and seriously funny, this book is a call to arms for fellow progressives with little real understanding of “the great beery, NASCAR–loving, church–going, gun–owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks.
“Deer Hunting with Jesus is Joe Bageant’s report on what he learned when he moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia. Like countless American small towns, it is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. Two in five of the people in his old neighbourhood do not have high school diplomas or health care. Alcohol, overeating, and Jesus are the preferred avenues of escape. (Review from Google books)