Radical Red - Nathan Dixon

As income inequality soars, as industries become further mechanized, as the populace cries out for some semblance of a social safety net and corporations complain of too much regulation, we are long overdue for a strong dose of protest literature. This \nwinner of the 15th annual BOA Short Fiction Prize features linked \nstories that indict the ultraconservative movement that emerged at the end of \nthe Cold War and extends into present day. \n\n \nOne strand of narratives follows a cohort of tea party \nconservatives--a politician, a radioman, and a \ntelevangelist--as their hyperbolic language \nshapes the world around them and leads to episodes of time travel and body \nhorror. The second strand follows individuals victimized by conservative \npolicy: their voices, their futures, their very bodies stripped from their \npossession. The final strand investigates the ways in which young conservatives \nhave adapted the nostalgic rhetoric of their forebears to carry on the twin \nprojects of minority oppression and environmental degradation--both of which they couch in the language of freedom. \n \nThe book is set in the South and parodies the stereotypes \nthat are still so prevalent here. Although the characters are more than mere \nciphers, they move through their semi-speculative world to illustrate ideas in \nthe same way as Richard Wright and Ursala Le Guin's characters. \n \n\n