The South Is Round: Contemplations of a 21st Century Redneck

Meant to be a satirical Southern response to Thomas Friedman's bestselling globalism primer The World is Flat, Magee's book skips economics, international business-and intelligent satire-to focus instead on the laziest kind of shock humor. Casual racism and misogyny abound, whether Magee's recalling drunken sex on a golf course or advising African-American politicians to win votes by ""exposing their blackness to the highest degree"": ""get a hat and put it on crooked.... get some big gaudy chains ... grab your crotch and slump your shoulders."" Commentary on illegal immigration hits similar notes: ""It does seem at times that illegal immigrants are living as if on extended work vacation where nothing needs to be taken too seriously."" Though his publisher touts Magee as ""edgy,"" readers may find more appropriate descriptors in ""juvenile"" and ""irrelevant""; perhaps a thesis or a conclusion would have given Magee's ""humor"" more bite. For Southern humor completists only.