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 Evan Wright

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 Reviews

• 
  Carrie

  I'm jealous of the journalistic niche Evan Wright has carved out for himself. Over a 10-year span at different publications including Hustler and Rolling Stone, he manages to keep getting assigned feature stories on people who have achieved infamy in some way. I know from experience how uncomfortable it can be to interview a murderer... This guy interviews more than one. There are also chapters on porn, taxi-dance halls, Motley Crue, soldiers in Afghanistan, professional skateboarders, anarchists, white supremacists, con artists and a crazy Hollywood filmmaker turned pro-war conservative darling.
  
  In the introduction, Wright talks about trying to let the facts speak for themselves, citing the white supremacist chapter (his first feature article) as one that he thought was too forgiving. But reading this, I didn't think he maintained a tone of neutrality, even if he was trying. Some of the things his subjects say are so completely stupid that you can't read their quotes without coming to the conclusion that they are stupid. For example, one of the Motley Crue girlfriends is quoted as saying 75% of American women have fake boobs. And of course, it's REALLY hard to be neutral when your subject has tried to sue you, in the case of Seth Warshavsky. No matter. It was everything I want in a book--informative, depraved and hilarious.
• 
  P.

  Worst cover, possibly, of any book I've read. The only cover I have tried to hide while reading in public. A cover that says "This book is about how to Do the Dew!"
  
  The essays are Jon Ronson and Neil Strauss-esque - magazine articles from 2000-2004, and one from 2007, published in 2009, probably because Evan Wright's book Generation Kill was selling well. And it's a good, if a bit outdated feeling, collection. The essays start out very objective reporting on some of the people living on the fringe of society, or outside of societal norms, like the Aryan Nation, a talented alcoholic skateboarder, lawyers who got involved in a dog ring run by their adopted adult son whereupon the dogs killed a neighbor of theirs, or UFC fighters (not as popular when this book was written). Wright's reporting is compelling and it was rare for me not to look up the people in the stories to see where they were now.
  
  As the essays go further into the world of porn, Wright's sphere of former employment (entertainment editor for Hustler), he gets more involved as a character. The last essay is the longest, a profile of a Hollywood agent turned documentarian and pro-war Republican. Wright is right there, watching this guy's homemade porn, giving the dude his credit card info to take another flight into a war zone instead of going to rehab for his full blown drug problem and undiagnosed mental illnesses.
  
  But Wright did a great job interviewing sleazy people but writing a book that won't implicate you in their sleaziness. You might feel a bit skeeved out at the end of all of it, but most of the time you'll also recognize the humanity in his subjects (except for Motley Crue who seem like terrible un self-aware humans)
• 
  Rebecca

  Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from a goodreads raffle. I am an occasional reader of Rolling Stone and a frequent reader of Vanity Fair, so some of Wright's pieces were familiar to me. The introduction to the previously published pieces is what readers will close the book wanting more of--Wright's personal reflections and honest examination of his experiences.
  
  Since most of my reading is academic, spiced only by hoity toity academic self referential attempts at humor and battened down by endless footnotes, Wright's narratives are fast reading for me. I sensed enough authenticity of detail in Wright's descriptions to accept the essays for what they are--a reporter's take on observations. In a typically self-deprecating move, he cites A.J. Leibling's statement "There is no circumstance under which an American doesn't like to be interviewed" as the reason why he is able to access individuals who have interesting and often scurrilous stories to tell. Wright must have the right scent, or vibe of similar dissonance, for these individuals to reveal their crimes, motivations, addictions, and dreams to him.
  
  This is an interesting read and should do well in the book market as Wright's style is accessible, laced with wry humor, and filled with juicy details. The essays would be interesting for discussions about ambition and illusions of power, the disruptive yet surprising strength of financial dis-ingenuity, and the raw realities faced by the insanely lucky, basely corrupt, the merely incompetent, and the innocents trying to survive in their wake.
• 
  Anna

  The basic message of this book is that Americans are crazy. Certainly those that Wright talked to. He seems to have a knack for being a good listener. In this collection of essays, he interviews neo-nazis, various criminals, porn stars, and the just plain odd. All are presented in their own words, with apparent neutrality. Naturally this makes practically all of them seem mad.
  
  I enjoyed this book, which reminded me strongly of Chuck Palahniuk's 'Non-Fiction' and 'Stranger Than Fiction'. Like both of those, it recounts strange sub-cultures at the edge of American society, in an almost anthropological manner. It isn't that much like 'Generation Kill' in content, although the extremely readable style and self-deprecating tone are just the same. 'Generation Kill' is a favourite book of mine, which recounts Wright's time embedded with US marines as they invaded Afghanistan. What I prefer is the single focus, on a battalion of marines and the invasion. Wright is clearly a great journalist and profiler of the eccentric, as both books attest.
  
  The pieces in 'Hella Nation' are good, the format just makes it rather bitty. I also found the frequent occurrence of alcoholism and drug addiction depressing. The pieces I liked best were probably the latter two, both of which involved the US army to some extent. Maybe Wright's style and methods just work best with the military? Or perhaps I just find them more interesting.
• 
  Sheila

  I received a copy of this through GoodReads First Reads program. Definately has an interesting title. The book is basically 12 separate stories, all of which the book states were previously published in slightly different formats in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Hustler, LA weekly, Vanity Fair, and Men's Journal. The stories were all interesting, often covering topics I had previously heard about in the news (such as the Aryan Nation, the WTO riots in Seattle, and the dogs that killed the woman in San Francisco) but with Evan Wright's version filling in all the dark details that I had previously not known. The one thing I was a bit disappointed with though was how dated most of these stories were. One was previously published in 2007, but all the others are stories from 1997 to 2002. It felt a bit like "old news", especially when outdated details would be included, such as a mention of President Bill Clinton. Evan Wright definately does have a knack though for getting all the background info and "the rest of the story" as they say, so I will give this book a good solid 3-stars.
• 
  Dan

  This book is a collection of some of
  Evan Wright's journalism work. This book reprints (in slightly longer form) some stories he did for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and other magazines. The stories in this book (in order that they occur):
  
  + Not Much War, but plenty of Hell:
  Wright reports embedded at a marine fire base in Afghanistan.
  + Piss Drunk: The story of Jim Greco, defacto figurehead of the Piss Drunx skateboarding crew.
  + Dance with a Stranger: The history and present of taxi dance halls.
  + Wingnut's Last Day on Earth:
  Wright meets the anarchists who were running amok at the WTO meetings in Seattle, and follows them from the Chaos in Seattle down to Eugene Oregon, and on a road trip to Los Angeles.
  + Heil Hitler, America!:
  Wright's break out journalist story. He reports on a Neo-Nazi compound in Idaho.
  + The Bad American: The story of a sleazy Phoenix area businessman who recruits Russian immigrants into his criminal schemes. One of his recruits is brutally killed.
  + Mad Dogs & Lawyers: The story of the lawyer couple in San Francisco who's dogs mauled and killed her neighbors.
  + Tough Guy: The story of UFC mixed martial artist Tito Ortiz.
  + Portrait of a Con Artist: The story of
  Seth Warshavsky, internet porn pioneer and crooked businessman. The story of how his internet porn company IEG, rose to prominence through fraud, and how it eventually collapsed.
  + Scenes from My Life in Porn:
  Wright writes about some of the most surreal things that happened to him while working for Hustler, while he was going through recovery for Alcoholism.
  + Forever Fourteen: The story of Motley Crue's reunion tour.
  + Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood: The story of Hollywood Agent turned Pro-Iraq War Republican film maker. Also a brilliant story of Pat Dollard's personal battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
  
  In addition to these stories, the introduction is a fascinating autobiographical description of
  Wright's own career and battles with drug and alcohol addiction. To give the brief version:
  Wright was a severe drug and alcohol addict for about a decade after he graduated undergrad. Eventually he got a job reviewing pornographic movies for Hustler, where he was able to join a 12-step program and get clean. Eventually he was given the opportunity to do serious journalistic work, in a report he did on a Neo-Nazi compound in Idaho.
  
  The overarching theme of the book is that these are all stories of outsiders, people thriving on the fringes of our civilization. However, because of
  Wright's own background he reports objectively, and is able to tell the human end of the story in a remarkably unbiased way.
  
  Although
  Wright approaches the stories objectively, he is always able to offer key insights, or focus on off handed comments and use them to illustrate how his subjects actually feel about the situation that they are in. For example, he draws an excellent parallel between the Jihadis that Pat Dollard wants to fight and Pat's own involvement in the Iraq war. Jihadis use the concept of war as a spiritually purifying act to recruit. Similarly, Pat Dollard is using the war to attempt to purify himself from his own drug and alcohol addictions.
  
  In his stories
  Wright refers to himself, and as such is labeled as "Gonzo" journalism. However,
  Wright himself rejects this. Saying that while he respects
  Hunter S Thompson he does not wish to emulate him.
  Wright never removes the focus from his subject, while he may mention his involvement in the story, he never becomes fully part of the story. As such, he is much more like the
  Tom Wolfe style of new journalism (although these days "new" is a little bit of a misnomer.)
  
  I gave this book a 3, because on a whole it isn't that fun of a read. Some of the stories in it are clear 5s, while others felt like a chore to get through.
  
  I read this book because I read
  Generation Kill and I thought
  Evan Wright did a great job with that book.
  
• 
  Ryan

  One of the best collections of journalism I've read in quite some time. There are other living US journalists worthy of an intelligent reader's attention - John McPhee, Eric Schlosser, David Remnick - but none as funny or as ferociously engaging as Evan Wright.
  
  His work has picked up some lazy comparisons to that of Hunter S. Thompson - not always due to the Rolling Stone connection - but the comparison misleads. However wacky, deluded or bizarre his subjects (porn starlets, eco-terrorists, neo-Nazi's), the tale remains in the foreground, not the teller. Wright has a gift for the telling detail, whether comic or bittersweet, and for the piercing phrase:
  
  'A man next to me politely passed the mustard. The bottle was sticky with KY Jelly. I never attempted to eat on a porn shoot again.'
  
  'Shayla's voice was gravelly and sweet, as if her vocal cords had been marinated in whiskey sours since puberty.'
  
  'The owner of the breast, an amphetamine-thin brunette with a feathered biker-chick hairdo, solemnly thanks them [Motley Crüe] and declares she is heading straight to the tattoo parlour to have their signatures gone over in indelible skin ink.'
  
  Wright's care for the people involved comes across too - quite an achievement under the circumstances. Perhaps none more so than the pathetically stupid Hollywood agent Pat Dollard.
  
  Despite being a coke-addicted narcissist with no particular talent for anything, Dollard is allowed to tag along with a band of soldiers during the Iraq war. His aim is to show the 'bedwetters' back home that 'killing is one of the most sacred and noble greatest things to go on in the world'. One feels like cheering when a shot only narrowly fails to decorate a nearby wall with Dollard's brains. The shot wasn’t fired by the enemy army but by an American soldier sick of Dollard's sullying presence.
  
  If I have a complaint, it's only a small one: the better stories are all at the front of the book, and in his longer pieces Wright has a tendency to go off on tangents just as his stories need to knit together for the finale. He has also written a book called Generation Kill, about the second Iraq War. It's been compared to classics of war reportage such as Michael Herr's Dispatches - and lives up to it. I recommend both.
• 
  Byron

  Essentially a collection of magazine articles by the guy most famous for having written Generation Kill. I read a good half of these in Rolling Stone when I was in college, including the story that became Generation Kill, plus a version of his famous story on nutjob Hollywood agent ternt right wing documentary filmmaker Pat Dollard, but I was more than happy to revisit them. They're hilarious and enlightening—even the ones on things that happened upwards of 20 years ago now. All of them seem to have been expanded from their original versions, especially the one on Dollard, which is lengthy AF and probably could have been a bunk unto itself, if anyone knew who he was or gave a shit.
• 
  Little Miss Esoteric

  I like this journalist's style. He appears to be able to draw the subject out without obvious effort, and gives them enough rope to either hang themselves, or present a hidden, redeeming side. After finishing this collection of articles, I'm left with a strong impression of our willingness to believe anything, no matter how pathetically stupid the idea, so long as it justifies our actions.
  
  
• 
  Michael Grizer (He-Him)

  Fun engaging fast summer read chronicling crazy stories that surely could only happen in America....
• 
  Olav Nilsen

  Brilliant
• 
  Eric

  Not exactly sure what to make of this book. While it does have a lot of interesting characters and potential, it comes across as very fragmented and lacking in purpose.
  
  The one redeeming quality of this book is Evan Wright's talent as a writer that keeps you wanting to read more and makes you assume that some sort of conclusion is on it's way; there aren't any. It's more like a collection of ramblings, the sort of tales you'd hear in a bar after half a dozen beers.
  
  I won't discredit Evan Wright for trying to do something different, this style of writing is seldom attempted and with the various alternative people that he reviews in his book it doesn't lack in entertainment.
  
  I neither liked nor disliked this book. I was able to read it in a few days without struggling through it, but it constantly left me wondering where the story was leading. His other 2 books (American Desperado & Generation Kill) are way better, more gripping and more structured than this one. It may be best to read this book first before reading the other ones so you aren't disappointed.
• 
  Erik Osburn

  Hella Nation by Evan Wright is one of my favorite books, period. Wright interviews extreme, uniquely American characters including anarchists, porn stars, and combat troops in the Middle East. His reportage brings important aspects of American life into focus. Wright treats these subjects with a jurist's sense of balance and proportion. The importance Wright places on grounding his reporting from the fringe in "observable details," and his predilection to reject descriptions of the world too convenient to any political ideology are both guiding principals for me. Wright's ability to choose bizarre subjects, render them in a manner simultaneously vivid and fair, and then draw insights from their lives about the larger culture to which they belong is a model of how reportage-ists and cultural critics should operate. Wright is a hero of mine. Any time I need inspiration or guidance about how to treat a piece I am writing, I simply crack open some of his work and the words flow a little easier.
  
• 
  Cathy

  This dark, twisted book by Evan Wright made for irresistable and gleefully perverse reading. Wright is an award winning journalist for "Hustler," "Rolling Stone," and other notable mags. He covers a wide swath from grunts in Afganistan on the hunt for terrorists and sexual release, skateboarders living lives of excess and short-lived glory, taxi-dancers in the Los Angeles inhabitating the twilight world of paid companionship, and of a convict raising viscious canines with the help of some truly warped sympathizers (we're talking beastialty here). Motley Crue tries to relive their glory(?) years in peverse delight. This discursive book, at times graphic, hilarious, depraved and deeply human, examines the cracks in human nature. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
• 
  Ryan

  A collection of interviews/vignettes about weird people in the US. Some were really exceptionally interesting, some were so boring that I skipped, some were deeply disturbing. Probably would be better as a set of long-form magazine articles than a book, but as long as you're comfortable skipping the sections which weren't worth reading (and it's obvious after a page or two), a decent collection.
• 
  IRA

  This is a really good read especially if you remember when his topics were current. It's neat that Mr. Wright was able to be involved with so many different types of people and stories.... professionally!
  Also cool how some of the trends described have not changed that much.
• 
  Andrew

  An interesting selection of essays originally found in truncated form within other publications.
  I enjoyed the interviews with a range of offbeat subjects...some whom you wouldn't want to give house space.
  I shall look for more collections by this author.
• 
  Adam Kanter

  Interesting collection of writings about various subcultures, enjoyed this.
• 
  John Arnold

  Wright writes right.
• 
  Shane

  I went into this without having any idea what it would be about. Thankfully I really liked it. Each essay was a glimpse into parts of America I hadn't previously known anything about. This kind of stuff makes for great conversation starters and it also can be very eye-opening. Many of the essays covered complete scumbags (like Pat Dollard) who had gotten rich and/or famous using different cons, scams and selling hatred. It was always fascinating that these people never ended up in jail, but were often harassed by the law and would at times end up completely broke and dying, only to recover and get rich again.
  
  It's unfortunate that many of the essays kind of leave you hanging, but considering that the people are still alive, I guess their stories haven't finished yet.
• 
  Daniel

  Very interesting stories from the fractured and sometimes seedy underbelly of Americana, sort of like a true-life "Knockemstiff" by Donald Ray Pollack.
  
  Probably what I found most fascinating though about this collection of stories was the introduction by author, Evan Wright. In it, he comes clean about his own semi-misfit status in the culture as a whole regarding himself as an outsider of sorts, not something that came across at all in his book Generation Kill, probably because he was so able to extricate himself from that environment and focus on his subjects. But in this book, the loneliness and the ostracism that are omnipresent in the lives of people forced to find their own support systems outside of the norm are always palpable just below the surface, sometimes frighteningly so.
  
  For better or for worse, this sort of participatory, voyeur journalism has become a very common theme from reporters and authors like Wright (Matt Taibbi also comes to mind). The question that only the reader can answer at the end is did this story or collection of stories take me somewhere worthwhile?
  
  I think the answer in this collection is sometimes, perhaps only because just as you are drawn into each scene and have become familiar with the participants the window into their lives closes and you are left to wonder if their stories even continue or are worth continuing. Wright is certainly a smart and insightful writer, but like any "found artist" you get the feeling that what he contributes to the overall conversation is going to be mostly determined by what he happens to stumble across. But then again, maybe it is the fact that he isn't afraid to let us see him stumble a little bit that makes these entries into his sideshow diary palatable.
  
  Also, while I gave the book three stars, I give the final chapter all about Pat Dollard five stars. It is so morbidly fascinating, it is hard to believe that Evan Wright got a front row seat to that trainwreck. And yes, he does the story justice.
• 
  Camille Broadway

  I have given this book to several people, including some of my journalism students, and made "Piss Drunk" required reading in a course so I must really like this book?!? Yet every time I sit down to review it I find I struggle to write a coherent evaluation. I think that part of it is I find Wright more appealing than some of his work in this book. I loved the forward (one of my all-time favorite forwards), the story on the taxi dancers ("Dance with a Stranger"), and Wright's account of his days as a pornalist ("My Life in Porn"). They are worth the cover price -- even if I want to black out that last anemic paragraph of "My Life in Porn" in every copy. The common element: Wright's authorial presence is front and center in all three pieces. I loved his selection of subject matter in several other pieces -- Pat Dollard, anarchists, skateboarder Jim Greco -- but these pieces lacked the engaging immediacy of Wright's best "immersion" work (and here I also am thinking of "Generation Kill," which I re-read recently, and his article for Salon.com "Maxed Out.") All the stories in Hella Nation -- except the utterly disposable profile of Motley Crue ("Forever Fourteen") -- contain flashes of what I love most about Wright's writing: crisp dialogue, telling details, and insightful vignettes. His depth of reporting is reflected in the quality of stories he tells (a lack of much immersion being the fatal flaw of the Motley Crüe story). But in the less successful pieces of Hella Nation, Wright struggles with structure, endings and conciseness. He reportedly had a great editor work with him on "Dance with a Stranger," and sometimes I get the sense he needs someone to take a stronger hand in helping him reign in his natural tendency to sprawl. Despite the flaws (or perhaps because of them), I will continue to give out copies and assign pieces from this book and wait patiently for "The Seed" or the cocaine trade book or whatever comes next.
• 
  A

  This isn't the most elegantly written prose or intellectually demanding collection of stories I've read recently (the profound Runaway by Alice Munro offers that, if that's what you're looking for, and you SHOULD read that too because it's fantastic), but it is purely enjoyable nevertheless.
  
  This book comprises a collection of elongated news articles (some previously published, but altered and re-published here, which makes me wonder if this was a "capitalize on the financial success of Generation Kill" type project, as the selection is a bit of a mish-mash of outdated works) about various unusual groups (some more unusual than others) throughout the US. There's a story about the anarchists of Seattle's WTO riot, another about neo-Nazis, and an autobiographic look into Wright's experiences working for Hustler. They are of varying lengths; the story about Pat Dollard reads like a novella.
  
  This book is really a lot of fun. It reads like a cool guy at a party telling you outrageous stories. In fact, some situations recounted by Wright are so absurd that I had to remind myself that I was reading journalism and not a Palahniuk novel (which this book, for some reason, reminded me of in tone). Wright skillfully balances sarcastic, sometimes mocking (and even critical at times) commentary with illuminating insights into the humanity of the people he's writing about, which creates a more genuine portrait of the characters than more clinical journalism would. I personally enjoyed the stories about Wright's own life, partially because of the absurdity of situations he finds himself in (working for a scam artist) and partially because of his cool, self-deprecatory style of prose that's allowed to be more engaging (because he's writing about his own thoughts and reactions, rather than being restrained in speculating about others').
  
  Overall, recommendation. Not so great that it's worth a second read, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.
• 
  TBML

  In this collection of essays, Evan Wright introduces us to skaters, soldiers, Earth Liberation Frontsmen, porn stars, neo-nazis, and small-time drug dealers (to name a few). It is an interesting collection and I certainly appreciate Wright's purpose in Hella Nation: to make us, for even a few minutes open ourselves up to those we normally write off as being too crazy, too radical, too drunk, or too creepy. As an almost-travelogue, it is entertaining, fascinating, and at times gruesome. But perhaps I expected too much from this exploration of the fringe. The subjects in the essays all seemed depressed, isolated and overwhelmingly lost. While this does seem to imply much about the United States as a nation and culture that gives birth to such groups/people, I suppose that I would have been interested in more exposition on the part of the author as to what this collection might mean. Additionally, I knocked a star off because some of the essays took place during the mid-90s and while interesting, did not seem as relevant or immediate to me. It is a fairly easy and entertaining read although it seemed to lose some momentum toward the end.--Brita
  Click
  here to find the book in our library.
• 
  Kevin

  This is a collection of essays that have been previously published in different (shorter) forms. The thread connecting all of the essays is that Wright embeds himself into a variety of fringe groups and offers an insider's perspective of people who are largely ignored or abhorred by mainstream society. The book was also educational, as I had never heard of taxi dance halls before. All of the essays were interesting, but some stood out above and beyond the others.
  
  I particularly enjoyed Wright's own stories about his involvement in the porn industry and with a burgeoning conman in the Wild West days of the internet. Wright's own business and personal dealings with Seth Warshavsky make the story far more personal and compelling than the other essays in the collection. This same personal touch makes the longer piece on Pat Dollard more interesting as well.
  
  Overall, this book is an interesting collection of essays. Because of the format however, you're often left wanting more. That's not necessarily a bad thing (it beats reading a long, bloated, boring piece), but it prevents this book from matching the excellent
  Generation Kill.