Coming to a Shelf Near You: Sissy Nation

Author and New York Times contributing writer John Strausbaugh gave a short talk which aired on Book TV this weekend. Strausbaugh condemns America as overweight, overmedicated gadget geeks, who have lost all sense of community in his book Sissy Nation.

Vital Stats

Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Virgin Books (February 5, 2008)
ISBN-10: 190526416X
ISBN-13: 978-1905264162

From the Book Description

Praised by The New York Times Book Review for being "persuasive [and] provocative," John Strausbaugh reveals in furious, funny, and ferocious strokes how Americans became sissified, soft, and scared—and offers us unforgettable solutions on how to snap out of it. The American Sissy cocoons in a safe, virtual world— Fundadome. He plays with online friendsters and he plays with himself, anything to abate the growing anxiety about everything from terrorists to sex and spinach, air and water. He votes for sissy leaders, who lash out at the world like bullies—sissies in tough-guy drag. He's so afraid of death and illness he doesn't really live; he medicates and analyzes. And he’s so busy following the lives of the rich and famous that he has no time to have a rich and fulfilled life of his own. "I don’t mean sissy as girly man versus manly man," Strausbaugh says. "This is not about big biceps. It’s about shrinking balls. And unless we stop acting like such sissies, soon enough some lean, angry barbarians from somewhere out Beyond Fundadome are going to overrun us, ramming their bayonets in our fat guts like fingers poking the Pillsbury Doughboy, and we won't be giggling."

Strausbaugh leaves no sacred cow untipped. He is as non-partisan as he is a straight shooter, taking equal aim at Democrats and Republicans, gays and straights, PETA fanatics, and the Christian right. But all is not lost. Sissy Nation offers "modest proposals" for getting back the gumption that made this culture great.

I just watched the C-SPAN video mentioned above and this looks to be a very thought-provoking read, the kind of book that will challenge just about every reader in some way. I am reminded of Curtis White's brilliant effort The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves. In short, Strausbaugh's work looks to be the kind of non-fiction book that I like to read. This is one that I hope to review here at some point.

Coming to a Shelf Near You: Beautiful Children

The latest review to pique my interest is Liesl Schillinger's report on a debut novel from Charles Bock. Schillinger expounds on Bock's Beautiful Children for tomorrow's edition of the New York Times Book Review.

Vital Stats

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Random House (January 22, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1400066506
ISBN-13: 978-1400066506

From the Book Description

One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn’t come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son’s room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy’s father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving touch, any kind of intimacy.

As the Ewings navigate the mystery of what’s become of their son, the circumstances surrounding Newell’s vanishing and other events on that same night reverberate through the lives of seemingly disconnected strangers: a comic book illustrator in town for a weekend of debauchery; a painfully shy and possibly disturbed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie scenes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a dangerous and scheming gutter punk; a band of misfit runaways. The people of Beautiful Children are “urban nomads,” each with a past to hide and a pain to nurture, every one of them searching for salvation and barreling toward destruction, weaving their way through a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the spinning wheels of chance.

In this masterly debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor to capture Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance and to provide a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption–heralding the arrival of a major new writer.

Unlike almost everyone I know, Vegas is a city that holds no allure for me. Yet the idea of a well-written novel that takes place there is somehow very appealing. I will definitely try to get my hands on this book over the coming year.