A Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle

(Hardback)

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The heartland's answer to David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, Nancy French tells one red state American's story about what it's like to live in the blue states - one laugh-out-loud anecdote after another. For the first twenty years of her life, all Nancy French knew of the world was Paris-Paris, Tennessee, that is. When the former homecoming queen trades in cow-tipping, her bouffant hairstyle, and the Catfish Capital of the World for a new life in New York with her fiance, she is in for a real education. Things seem to get lost in translation when she enrolls in her first women's studies/philosophy class at New York University ("Women's Studies is the study of why men deserve to be eliminated from the planet as soon as babies can be grown in Petri dishes and pickle jars come with easy-open lids"), fights in a Woodstock hospital for her right to disposable diapers and pacifiers ("the nurse explained the baby could be confused by foreign nipples"), and is almost arrested in Philadelphia for leaving a stroller unattended at the Liberty Bell. Turning her keen eye for humor to the red states, French discusses the Southern fixation on the Civil War, otherwise known as the "War of Northern Aggression," obsession with church attendance, and affinity for chain restaurants; she dispels the blue state notion that red staters think as slowly as they speak.

Author Bio

Nancy French is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News (readership of 525,000), in which she addresses issues like politics, religion and culture with a light, humorous touch. Nancy also writes for the Philadelphia City Paper, a weekly alternative newspaper (readership of 460,000). For links to Nancy's articles and further information find her on the web at www.NancyFrench.com.