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God and Arson: My interview with Monica Hesse concludes – part 3 of 3
In previous segments of this interview, I talked with Monica Hesse, author of American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land, about her experience of the Eastern Shore and her thoughts about what the 2012-2013 arsons have to say about rural America in general. Today we conclude with some thoughts about the religious life →
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The Relentless Storytelling of Philipp Meyer: A Review of American Rust
Philipp Meyer is a relentless storyteller. By the time he gets through with you, you will have a deep immersion in the place where the story happens and will have met characters who are anything but passive. They are doers who fight and scrape against an unjust world. They make many mistakes, some dreadful, →
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Why Books Will Win
I’m making a wager that books will lead us to the future. Heartlands came about as a desire to understand the present age, particularly from the perspective of rural America and rural church ministry. In the beginning I was trying to figure out why the place where I live seemed suddenly so strange to me. →
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Serving Time in Alabama: A Review of Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
Breathe in rural Alabama circa 1925. Take deep breaths, “great lungfuls of the scent-tinged air—grass and cornstalks and peanut plants, mulch and dung and mule hide” (159). Feel the heat of July. “This low sun turns every lick of water to steam, even the fresh-pumped drinks in our mess-issued bottles. The sun bakes those metal →
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Talking to Anarchists – An interview with Arlie Russell Hochschild – part 3 of 3
By now you know the story, if you’ve been following since Part 1: Blue state sociologist goes to oil patch Louisiana to try and understand the environment and the people of this Red state. Writes Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Talks with an Eastern Shore preacher about what she →
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Churches & Dysfunctional Government – An Interview with Arlie Russell Hochschild – Part 2 of 3
We are repenting from our assumption that government can be an adequate expression of our faith. That’s one of the marks of these times for Christians on both sides of the Great Divide. When Arlie Russell Hochschild, the Berkley sociologist, went to Louisiana to try to understand the deep story of people on the American Right, →
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Crossing the Great Divide: An Interview with Arlie Russell Hochschild – part 1 of 3
Can a Berkley sociologist and a Louisiana oil patch Tea Party member find common ground? That was the experiment Arlie Russell Hochschild (the sociologist) undertook when she found she was having a hard time understanding the forces that were shaping Red States. When I wrote a review of her book about the project, Strangers →
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How to write with words you use all the dang time – a review of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir
“At the nadir of my confidence as a writer, I despaired of ever finishing Lit. I considered selling my apartment to give the advance money back. Then a Jesuit pal asked me, quite simply, What would you write if you weren’t afraid? I honestly didn’t know at first. But I knew finding the answer would →
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