Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier
With an admitted lack of certainty about what America "means," Sides nonetheless has amassed a collection of articles and essays that capture the country's elusive qualities, noting that America, supremely confident, has run out of geographical space and is now venturing into new social frontiers. In the collection of 30 stories, Sides illustrates the amazing breadth and depth of American preoccupations and idiosyncrasies. He gate-crashes the ultra-exclusive, conservative Bohemian Grove resort in California and then chronicles a rafting party for the human-engineered flooding of the Grand Canyon, the reentry ceremony for Biosphere 2 in Arizona, and the anything-goes weekends in the California desert. He profiles an array of individuals, from Native American radical Russell Means to extreme skateboarder Tony Hawk. In a section on post-9/11 America, Sides profiles three survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and explains his decision not to embed himself as a journalist in Iraq. With an eye for detail and the absurd, Sides, author of the highly acclaimedGhost Soldiers(2001), presents a vivid portrait of the restlessness and inventiveness of Americans.Vanessa BushCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved