This Book Will Change Your Life - Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy by the David Masciotra.
Thoughts on liminal spaces, public intellectualism, hope and concern, and America now.
I feel a need to apologize for reading this book like a full year after it was released, and really that apology is for David Masciotra the author of the scathing and brilliant Exurbia Now. Masciotra is a friend and I’m a fan, and like other authors I love and admire, such as Sara Lippmann, Scott McClanahan, Hanif Abdurraqib, I consider a Masciotra release to be an event, and a moment to pause and appreciate that we have more of his writing and words in the world. This response may be for different reasons, though brilliance is at the foundation of it, and if I was to couch my opening sort of mea culpa with a somewhat conflicting thought it would read like this: I hate myself for taking so long to get to this book, and just as with most of Masciotra’s work, it remains timely, and arguably all of which he argues and tangles with in Exurbia Now is more pertinent than it was at the time of publication, as the country, and world, feels far worse off, and Masiotra’s observations and exhortations are that much more salient.
Many years ago and most certainly at the start of this ongoing relationship I had this to say about Masciotra’s work, and more specifically his insights and literary presence: “Masciotra is a Vidalesque public intellectual.” I wrote that because I believed it to be true then and I believe it now. Masciotra himself is a great of fan of Gore Vidal’s work and writing and in that way my intention was to honor Masciotra with what I believed was the highest compliment. It’s more than that as well though. In a time where we are starved of people taking pride in their intellectualism and their impulse to share their ruminations on the state of the state, Masciotra gladly, at times bravely, fully embraces the opportunity. I also once wrote this about Masciotra as well: “We are convinced more than ever that David Masciotra is the bastard love child of Lester Bangs and William Julius Wilson.” And this seems important to me too, Masciotra understands that the to understand culture and identify a means for engaging the public in one’s efforts to explain what’s what and why it is so, one needs to understand the artists who seek explain to make sense of it for us.
Which is also to say, that Masciotra straddles the line between critic, public intellectual, and sociologist and does so with a combination of panache, populism, and profundity. Which in turn brings us to Exurbia Now and it’s effort to make sense of the America we live in today and have been living in for the last decade, if not longer. His thesis is that to understand what brought us to Trump America one must understand the growth of the exurbs, that liminal America space that exists beyond cities and suburbs, and is not quite small town America either, but the great expanses that exist where white America and white nationalism, super churches, and cities design neighborhoods without sidewalks or public transportation form their own protective fiefdoms in the the belief that doing so will keep progressive politics at bay, while simultaneously capturing a false sense of nostalgia for America that never was. At least if you’re talking about America where all were once prosperous and equality was what it was.
Masciotra is not without hope however, he seeks out the good as well, and writes of defiance and those who are striving to create a more welcoming and diverse community even when the larger population has steeled themselves against such things. And this isn’t nothing. It can be easy to despair, and it can be hard to find good things to say about the world right now, and we have no choice. Concern without hope is a losing battle, and we are in a battle, something Exurbia Now makes all too clear.
Will reading Exurbia Now and Masciotra writ large change your life, I believe that goes it with saying, though more so, it’ll wreck your brain and force you to consider hard truths as you contemplate what America is and may yet become, good or bad. I hope you’ll find my latest interview with Masciotra on This Podcast Will Change Your Life. These steps aren’t everything, and they are a start, building knowledge, finding inspiration, and doing all we can to prepare ourselves to push back; intellectually and peacefully.