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

by Wright, Evan

• ISBN13: 9780399155741
• ISBN10: 0399155740
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-02
• Publisher: Putnam Adult

Summary

From the award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author of Generation Kill, a reporter’s immersion in outsider cultures—His style owes more to Hunter S. Thompson than to any sort of political correctness” (Newsday). From his work as a reporter at Hustlermagazine, to his National Magazine Award–winning writing for Rolling Stoneand Vanity Fair, Evan Wright has always had an affinity for outsiders—what he calls the lost tribes of America.” The previously published pieces in this collection chart a deeply personal journey, beginning with his stark but sympathetic portrayals of sex workers in Porn Valley, through his raw portrait of a Hollywood überagent-turned-war documentarian and hero of America’s far right. Along the way, Wright encounters runaway teens earning corporate dollars as skateboard pitchmen; radical anarchists plotting the overthrow of corporate America; and young American troops on the hunt for terrorists in the combat zones of the Middle East. His subjects are people for whom the American dream is either just out of grasp, or something they’ve chosen to reject altogether. Sometimes frightening, usually profane, and often darkly comic, Hella Nation is Evan Wright’s meticulously observed tour of the jagged edges of all those other Americas hiding in plain sight amid the nation’s malls and gated communities. The collection also includes an all-new, autobiographical introductory essay by the author.

Author Biography

Evan Wright is the New York Times-ûbestselling author of Generation Kill, recently an HBO miniseries, which he co- wrote. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair, he has also written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among numerous other publications. He is the recipient of two National Magazine Awards for reporting and profile writing, and for Generation Kill he received a Los Angeles Times Book Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN Literary Award, and a General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Not Much War, but Plenty of Hell	p. 17
Piss Drunk	p. 35
Dance with a Stranger	p. 48
Wingnut's Last Day on Earth	p. 69
Heil Hitler, America!	p. 106
The Bad American	p. 119
Mad Dogs & Lawyers	p. 160
Tough Guy	p. 181
Portrait of a Con Artist	p. 198
Scenes from My Life in Porn	p. 224
Forever Fourteen	p. 251
Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood	p. 271
Acknowledgments	p. 339
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