Republic of Detours

How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America

Republic of Detours
Scott Borchert
RRP:
NZ$ 63.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 54.39
Hardback
h229 x 152mm - 400pg
15 Jun 2021
International import eta 7-19 days
9780374298456
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
An immersive account of the New Deal project that created state-by-state guidebooks to America, in the midst of the Great Depression--and employed some of the biggest names in American lettersThe plan was as idealistic as it was audacious--and utterly unprecedented. Take thousands of broke writers and put them to work charting a country on the brink of social and economic collapse, with the aim of producing a rich and beguiling series of guidebooks to the forty-eight states. There would be hundreds of other publications dedicated to cities, regions, and towns, plus voluminous collections of folklore, ex-slave narratives, and even recipes, all of varying quality, each revealing distinct sensibilities. All this fell within the singular purview of the Federal Writers' Project--a division of the Works Progress Administration founded to employ jobless writers, from bestselling novelists and acclaimed poets to the more dubiously qualified. It was a predictably eclectic organization, directed by an equally eccentric man, Henry Alsberg--a disheveled Manhattanite and "philosophical anarchist" who was prone to fits of melancholy as well as bursts of inspiration. Under Alsberg' s direction, the FWP took up the lofty goal of rediscovering America, and soon found itself embroiled in the day' s most heated arguments regarding literary representation, radical politics, and racial inclusion--forcing it to reckon with the promises and failures of both the New Deal and the American experiment itself. Scott Borchert' s Republic of Detours tells the story of this raucous and remarkable undertaking by delving into the stories of several key figures and tracing the FWP from its optimistic early days to its dismemberment by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Along with Alsberg and a cast of New Dealers, we meet Vardis Fisher, the cantankerous Western novelist whose presence on the project proved to be a blessing and a curse; Nelson Algren, broke and smarting from the failure of his first novel, whose job saved him from a potentially grim fate; Zora Neale Hurston, the most published Black woman in the country, whose talents were sought by the FWP' s formally segregated Florida office; and Richard Wright, who arrived in the chaotic New York City office on an upward career trajectory, courtesy of the WPA. Meanwhile, Ralph Ellison, Margaret Walker, John Cheever, and many other future literary stars found sustenance when they needed it. By way of these and a multitude of other stories, Borchert illuminates an essentially noble enterprise that sought to create a broad, inclusive, and collective self-portrait of America at a time when the nation' s very identity and future were thrown into question. As the United States enters a new era of economic distress, political strife, and culture-industry turmoil, this book' s lessons are urgent and strong.
Borchert' s vast research and appreciation of this stellar group [of writers] shows what government nurturing of artists can accomplish in even the worst of times. --Booklist (starred review)A wide-ranging and deeply researched study . . . Borchert' s lucid prose brings the FWP and its colorful personalities to life . . . Literature and history buffs will learn much from this immersive portrait of 1930s America. --Publishers Weekly"A joy to read, this book blends riveting life narratives of luminous authors put to work by the New Deal' s Federal Writers' Project with absorbing portraits, both geographic and social, of Depression America. Through an engagement with the history of 48 state guidebooks, we gain a bracing account--ever more germane--of the country' s riven politics and fraught questions of race. " --Ira Katznelson, professor of history and political science at Columbia University and author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time"A description of Scott Borchert' s Republic of Detours sounds a bit like cover copy you might discover on a remaindered utopian pulp novel: During a period of crisis and widespread suffering, the United States government, acting in the common good, offered jobs to all in need--even artists and writers. But the book you' re holding is a serious work of history, not a daydream captured in prose. It is the story of the Federal Writers' Project, the desperate and talented writers it employed, and the idiosyncratic books they created. The project existed for only a few years, but in that time it revived dozens of careers, provided early support to some of the most impactful writers of the twentieth century, and shaped our literary tradition by anchoring it to our land, people, and lore, and infusing it with vernacular and doggerel. It' s a story of great consequence, and Borchert has done it justice by writing an account worthy of sharing shelf space with his subjects. " --Colin Asher, author of Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren "The intersection of literature and politics is often described as a bloody crossroads. Scott Borchert' s engrossing and wonderfully well researched history of the Federal Writers' Project suggests another metaphor: a rich, complex, and sometimes stormy marriage. Somehow the government harnessed the talents and energies of thousands of economically strapped writers and editors from, yes, sea to shining sea in a Rube Goldberg-esque bureaucracy and produced books that merged the all-inclusive spirit of Leaves of Grass with the utility of AAA motoring guides. The lessons to be learned in Republic of Detours about how government can (and must) support American culture and the people who produce and administer it are many and timely and very, very urgent. " --Gerald Howard, editor of The Sixties: The Art, Politics, and Media of Our Most Explosive Decade and author of a forthcoming biography of Malcolm Cowley
Scott Borchert is a writer and former assistant editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and his work has appeared in Southwest Review, Monthly Review, The Rumpus, PopMatters, Brooklyn Magazine, and elsewhere.
Status: No local stock, title imported to order
ISBN-13: 9780374298456
Published: 15 Jun 2021
Published In:
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Format: Hardback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Pages: 400

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