Redneck Nation

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 23 SEPT. 2002

Despite having lost the Civil War, the South has somehow managed to win the "battle of ideas" across our nation, contends radio talk-show host Graham in this hilarious collection of essays covering such topics as Enron, the public school system, free speech, multiculturalism, racism and the "supreme triumph of the Redneck nation." Using quotes from H.L. Mencken, Gallup poll statistics and plenty of firsthand experience, the author examines this peculiar phenomenon with a cynical wit that spares no one, including himself. He begins by explaining the difference between the North and South, specifically between South Carolina, where he grew up, and New York, where he often traveled ("New Yorkers pretend they've read books they haven't. Southerners deny reading the ones they have"). Drawing from his own childhood in Dixie ("a land of few ideas, nearly all of them bad"), his college years at Oral Roberts University (which combined "the intellectual rigor of a Sunday school picnic with the sound theological theories of a slumber party s ance") and the 27 years he's spent running away from the South, Graham wittily illustrates "Redneck" infiltration into mainstream politics through conspiracy theories, victim mentality (as witnessed by the popularity of such national programs as the Jerry Springer show) and segregation, in a book readers won't be able to put down.