Hella Nation

From his work as a reporter at Hustler magazine, to his National Magazine Awardwinning writing for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Evan Wright has always had an affinity for outsiderswhat he calls the lost tribes of America. The previously published pieces in this collection chart a deeply personal journey, beginning with his stark but sympathetic portrayals of sex workers in Porn Valley, through his raw portrait of a Hollywood uberagent-turned-war documentarian and hero of Americas far right. Along the way, Wright encounters runaway teens earning corporate dollars as skateboard pitchmen; radical anarchists plotting the overthrow of corporate America; and young American troops on the hunt for terrorists in the combat zones of the Middle East. His subjects are people for whom the American dream is either just out of grasp, or something theyve chosen to reject altogether. Sometimes frightening, usually profane, and often darkly comic, Hella Nation is Evan Wrights meticulously observed tour of the jagged edges of all those other Americas hiding in plain sight amid the nations malls and gated communities. The collection also includes an all-new, autobiographical introductory essay by the author.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.