This is from a gifted  writer I’d never heard of before. He’s got 7, now 8, books to his name and I think they’re all collections essays. touches him emotionally and that contributes to his brilliance with the written word. I think Sharlet could probably write the bark off a tree.  He gets a couple points just for that. 

The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War
By Jeff Sharlet 
2023/ 337 pp
Read by Jeff Scarlet – 11h 45m
Rating: 9.5 / history & morals/politics of US
(Both read and listened)

It’s one heck of a book to read following American Midnight – I think. I’m definitely leaning toward the left lane of middle-of-the-road politics – or at least aware and against the right wing “conservative” branches. And maybe these Sharlet is reporting on are fringe – we can hope so but the polls don’t seem to say that.  

It was on sale and the blurbs made it sound pretty interesting, emphasizing Trump’s supporters. That’s true as far as it goes.  The book is divided into 3 Sections each with a few essays. There’s Day-Oh- On Hope,”  “Dream On: On Vanity,” and Goodnight, Irene: On Survival.”  

Some of the essays in the collection are truly excellent, like the first one, “Voice and Hammer,” which is abut Harry Belafonte, his life and talent but focuses on his activism which I’d never even heard about.  This was originally published in 2013 or so and may be the best of the lot. It’s here at the Virginia Quarterly Review as a separate piece:   https://www.vqronline.org/articles/voice-and-hammer

That may be one of the finest essays I’ve ever read and this, my first collection from him, only served as an introduction. Sharlet has been compared to others, but he reminds me most of John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley.  (But I’m not alone in that – I googled and see that Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till, is quoted as having said “Sharlet is his generation’s Steinbeck” https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-brilliant-darkness-a-book-of-strangers-jeff-sharlet/6952627

 Other Sections of The Undertow are varied in length and topic and they were written more recently. In the same Section as  “Day-O – On Hope,” there is a second  essay, “On the Other Side of Possibility,” which mostly looks at the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon and its notorious “library.”  Men’s Rights are covered and conspiracy theorists of many stripes.

Then I got to the second Section, “Dream On: On Vanity.”  This one got a bit weird and I almost gave up at “Whole Bottle of Red Pills,” the 5th essay, but perseverance won out. (Yay!!! – it was so worth it.)  

Then comes Section 2, which gets to some of the individual narcissism of the bunch who attacked the Capital on 1/6/2021. Sharlet wasn’t at the event, but he found people who had been and did what he does – interviewed, got them to talk about it and their thoughts.  There are some very strange photographs included.- very curious and interesting. 

Section 3 is called “Goodnight Irene” and is mostly about Jan 6, 2021 with “The Undertow” being 123 pages long – it has its own parts though.  I think this might be what some call a “long read.”  (In fiction it would be a novella.) 

The book was on sale and although I’d never heard anything about it or the author, it sounded interesting.  I came to find out later that Sharlet has written 7 other books along spiritual/moral lines, but dealing with the realities of contemporary US  society including the political divide with its religious themes. In

this one the topics go from Harry Belafonte and the Freedom Marches, to Occupy Wall Street, then Trump, Ashli Babbitt and more Trump, the ministry today and back to the music scene with folk sinter Lee Hayes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hays  (not too far removed from Woody Guthrie).   It’s had super-good reception in the media.  

I found that Sharlet usually writes about religious issues and produces politically left-of-center essays separately and in collections. He’s regularly reviewed by NY Times, WaPo and in many (!) other places. He teaches at Dartmouth and does other things  His most freequently mentioned has been