Book Review: Deer Hunting with Jesus

Deer Hunting with Jesus is actually quite famous.  Published in 2007 the book has already been reprinted twice and this is the Australian edition.¹ When it was first published in America,² it created quite a stir and its author, Joe Bageant, is now a very popular social and political commentator.

Bageant is from Winchester, Virginia. He returned to his hometown shortly before writing this book after nearly 30 years living on the West Coast of America.  In Deer Hunting with Jesus, Bageant sets out to examine his hometown and to unearth the mystery, or perhaps more accurately the misery, of the “unwashed working class America, … that churchgoing, hunting and fishing, Bud-Light drinking, provincial America”.

Bageant has a knack for describing those around him and a parade of at times tragic, at times simply appalling, characters march through the pages of his book.  For example, Fat Pootie who votes, drinks, wields a gun and wears a T-shirt that reads: “One million battered women in this country and I’ve been eating mine plain!”.  Or take Dottie, a 50 year old woman who started full time work at 13, and married at 15, and is now disabled by heart trouble, diabetes and several other diseases and, despite being unable to work, does not qualify for social security. Yet, she still turns up on Karaoke night at the local bar with her oxygen tank in tow to sing “I’m crazy” by Patsy Cline.

One of the central questions this book seeks to address is why the working class of America voted for the Bush administration in successive elections despite the fact that many of the difficulties and social dysfunction they face could be attributed to Bush economic and social policies.  In the wake of the Obama victory at the last US Federal Election, the state of Virginia is now a blue state having voted 53% to 47% in favour of Obama.  Reading the book I couldn’t help wishing that it had been written after the election for some insight into whether “Obamamania” had penetrated to the good people of Winchester, Virginia.

With Deer Hunting, Bageant attempts to peel back the glossy varnish of American consumer society to reveal the unregulated mortgage market; the serious short fall between the minimum wage and a living wage; the chronic levels of underinsurance for health care; and, of course, the gun lobby.

At times though, I must confess I was a bit disappointed with the book.  Bageant’s treatment of the people of Winchester often appeared patronising and it was difficult to distinguish between the facts he had gathered and the opinions he has formed.

On the whole, this book is an easy read and, despite its shortcomings, it does provide a timely insight into the lives of those people who are simply not getting by in America.

Sarah Holland

Footnotes

1. According to the preface to his Australian edition Bageant professes some degree of affinity with his Australian audience.
2. By Random House, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.