{"id":186,"date":"2018-10-15T21:25:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T02:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/?p=186"},"modified":"2018-10-15T21:25:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T02:25:16","slug":"non-fiction-text-review-for-hella-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/2018\/10\/15\/non-fiction-text-review-for-hella-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Fiction Text Review for Hella Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evan Wright\u2019s book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hella Nation <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">centers around Wright\u2019s experiences with unique groups of people around the country. Wright\u2019s purpose in writing this book was to find what he considered to be the \u201clost tribes of America\u201d and report on their unique lifestyles. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wright uses his skills as a reporter to infiltrate into the lives of these outsiders and tries to understand their nature and their actions. The book is about his experiences with groups ranging from sex workers\/taxi-dance halls to Hollywood directors. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evan Wright is an American-born writer who has worked for <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vanity Fair <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rolling Stone <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">reporting on subcultures. He graduated from John Hopkins University and Vassar College. His first writing gig was interviewing a South African Political leader, though the job did not pay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After his stints in non-paying jobs, Wright was able to begin his career of immersion reporting. While immersing himself into the lives of different subcultures, he began to write long features based on what he experienced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This experience led him to be able to immerse himself into the cultures for the book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hella Nation. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">His career in journalism prepared him for his authorship and gave his book a more real, tangible feeling to it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wright wrote<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hella Nation<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in order to display the subcultures of the United States in their raw state. He wrote this book to introduce to his readers the differences in American life and the complexities of those in what are sometimes deemed \u201ccountercultures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wright\u2019s book is meant to make the reader think. He has specifically designed the book to lay out different \u2018characters\u2019 chapter by chapter that explores untamed portions of American life. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wright used multiple different tactics in order to write this book. Most importantly, and most often, he used methods of participating and observation. Within the first chapter of the book, Wright makes it clear that the story of the Fifth Platoon Delta Company was told through his perspective and observations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wright immersed himself into the surroundings of the people he wrote about, and then he watched them. He listened to their vernacular and described their hygiene. Everything from the way their hair was parted to the amount of alcohol they consumed a day to their amount of times they could say \u2018fuck\u2019 in a day was recorded.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the chapter \u201cDancing With a Stranger,\u201d Wright uses participation to understand his subjects best. He chooses to dance with the ladies in each taxi-club in order to learn about who they are as people and who they are as clients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of the spots where Wright\u2019s participation becomes crucial to understanding the people of the story. In order to learn about each taxi-club, Wright must interact with females from each spot. This leads to his direct participation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These two methods, along with brief interviews from people in the subcultures or outside sources, make up the majority of the book. This creates subjectivity in the story because these characters and experiences become a part of Wright\u2019s life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Personally, I enjoyed the set-up of the book. Each chapter was a new story dedicated to a new group which kept the book interesting. My favorite chapter is still \u201cDance With a Stranger\u201d because it was interesting to hear about the different levels of dancing and intimacy that are offered for money in certain cities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This book has caused me to think a little deeper about unique cultures within American. Even though they \u201cdon\u2019t fit in,\u201d they are what help make America different. They are the groups that set America apart. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evan Wright\u2019s book Hella Nation centers around Wright\u2019s experiences with unique groups of people around the country. Wright\u2019s purpose in writing this book was to find what he considered to be the \u201clost tribes of America\u201d and report on their unique lifestyles. Wright uses his skills as a reporter to infiltrate into the lives of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1010,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4296],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/journalism208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}