RAINBOW PIE: A Redneck Memoir by JOE BAGEANT

CHICAGO, March 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Rainbow Pie (Scribe Publications; US release April 2011) by Joe Bageant is a coming-of-age memoir wrapped around a discussion of America's most taboo subject — social class. Set between 1950 and 1963, Joe Bageant uses members of his rambunctious Scots–Irish family to chronicle the post-war journey of 22 million rural Americans into the cities, where they became the foundation of a permanent white underclass. Combining recollection, stories, and analysis, the book offers an intimate look at what Americans lost in the massive and orchestrated post-war shift from an agricultural to an urban consumer society. Along the way, it also provides insights into how "the second and third generation of displaced agrarians," as Gore Vidal described them, now fuel the discontent of America's politically conservative, God fearing, Obama-hating "red-staters." These are the gun-owning, uninsured, underemployed white tribes inhabiting America's heartland: the ones who never got a slice of the pie during the good times, and the ones hit hardest by America's bad times. Bageant tells their story with poignancy, indignation, and tinder-dry wit.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"Bageant is a US social commentator with a unique angle — he was born a redneck, in rural America. Now he is a middleclass intellectual and an acerbic commentator on his beloved land. He became famous with Deer Hunting With Jesus, an analysis of poor, white, conservative Americans that was written with Steinbeck-like compassion and observation ... Rainbow Pie continues in this vein ... A powerful book." — Sunday Age

"An amazing read. What Harper Lee had to hide behind fiction to write, Joe Bageant has done straight-up, with all the bones showing. This is a majestic work." — Bob Kincaid, Head-On Radio Network

More reviews here: http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/rainbowpie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Bageant frequently appears on public radio nationwide and on the BBC, writes for newspapers and magazines internationally and has been featured in numerous documentary films. His book Deer Hunting with Jesus: dispatches from America's class war has been adapted for the theatre and is being developed as a dramatic television series by HBO. Bageant spends much of each year in Belize and Mexico, where he writes and sponsors development projects. He also writes an online column (www.joebageant.com) that has made him a cult hero.

SOURCE Scribe Publications