cover image 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

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

Evan Wright, . . Putnam, $25.95 (338pp) ISBN 978-0-399-15574-1

Rolling Stone writer Wright (Generation Kill ), offers 12 tales of outsiders, people more or less living off the grid in mainstream America. He profiles, for example, a member of Delta Company in Kandahar in southeastern Afghanistan dueling with the Taliban; a fun-loving regular at a dance hall; a committed local anarchist engaging in street theater at a global trade conference; a pastor of the Aryan Nation preaching against the evils of blacks and Jews and other nonwhite “mud people”; and two HIV-infected former porn stars. As a former editor of Hustler magazine, Wright recognizes the magic in Seth Warshavsky, a con man with a mind full of schemes in the porn world of bartered desire. There is some top-drawer writing among weaker essays, but the total effect reflects a literary rebel who wants to break convention. (Apr.)