Customer Reviews

Hartsburg, USA: A Novel

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This was the first work of Mr. Mizner's I've enjoyed, and it won't be the last. The book was incredibly enjoyable and thought provoking. Each time I put the book down I found myself thinking about what I'd just read, and reacting to it. While the plot involves a school board race, the book is really a fantastic character study of the novel's two main characters: Bevy and Wallace. He shows them both to be passionate, intelligent, and most of all, flawed. Mizner shows us that people on both ends of the political and idealogic spectrum experience the same human trial and tribulations. I found myself swaying between pity for and anger at both of these main characters. One thing I found most enjoyable is that even after completing the book I cannot tell whether Mr. Mizner himself is D or R, and that's a pleasant change from many politically themed novels where it's easy to tell by a few chapters in which way the author leans. Mizner shows that both characters have good in them, and have some bad in them. A wonderful read and I can't wait to get my hands on his other book, and hopefully, future books.

HARTSBURG, USA is a typical town in Midwest Ohio, once the political bellwether of the nation but now gripped in slow economic decay as factories and jobs move away, and where the only thing really growing is evangelical Christianity. In this context comes a hotly contested election for the local school board: on one side is Bevy Baer, a conservative born-again Christian mother of five, and on the other is the liberal journalist and failed screenwriter Wally Cormier. The two of them, diametrically opposed to each other, become intensely invested in the race far beyond the actual stakes, banners are raised on both sides, and in the process the election becomes a sort of referendum on which set of beliefs--and what kind of person--the people of Hartsburg really want for their community. The race is at turns passionate, hilarious, and not a little unsettling (it eventually turns personal and very dirty). The depth and the seriousness of the conflict is revealed in Baer's words: "Think about values you hold dear, values that are central to who you are. Values that are who are you... now imagine a teacher telling your child that those values are wrong. Imagine a teacher telling your child that you are wrong."

This is the crux of the American red-blue divide. Can fundamentally different sets of values be brought together, or even coexist? Perhaps fittingly, the author David Mizner seems to suggest two answers, on two levels. The first is the one expressed by Baer and the other characters: that liberals and conservatives are at war, and the only way to win is to destroy the other side. At the end of the novel, there is no sense that the political chasm has come any closer to being bridged, nor have any of the characters really changed or come to a new appreciation of things. Cormier is still a "free to be a latte-drinking liberal" and Baer's faith in her family and her religion is stronger than ever. The War in Iraq, the constant depressing subtext to the story, continues to drag on with no end in sight. Without giving away who wins, Hartsburg has a new school board member, but the town is still there, still in decline and with the same bitter personal and partisan battles sure to be waiting ahead. What then, has really changed? The differences are irreconcilable and inevitable, Mizner seems to tell us, the conflicts not imagined but very real, on abortion, gay rights, the war on terror--that uncomfortable reality which is the Culture War, the Political War, which must have both a winner and a loser. (Incidentally there are some useful political lessons to be had here: people ought to fight for what they believe in--"it's not essential that voters agree with what you believe in; they respond to belief itself".)

The second answer to the question of living in a plural society that Mizner suggests is a more hopeful one, and it comes from the way he writes the book itself. The author has an eye for telling detail, a fierce wit, and most importantly a deep sympathy for his characters, who are sometimes thin but never caricatures. His prose descends occasionally into melodrama, as if he is straining too hard, but for the most part it is graceful and serviceable. The book reads quickly and is paced well. While the large cast of secondary characters suffers from a lack of individual space and thus development, the two main characters, Cormier and Baer, are vividly, convincingly, and equally drawn. Cormier reminds one of his journalist colleagues that "not every story has two sides," but that is precisely what Mizner does in this book, in a presentation that is nothing less than--well--fair and balanced (though his progressive leanings are still obvious).

Despite being built around a political campaign, the book is not about politics, not truly. Mizner, a perceptive writer, cannot ignore the humanity of his characters, and that elevates HARTSBURG, USA to a much more fundamental level than the book jacket might suggest. By the end which person won the race is almost beside the point, and the lengths they went to win it seem absurd and ridiculous. What matters, Mizner seems to say, is something that transcends the labels of liberal or conservative: to be a good parent, a good friend, a good person. Though they do not see it, though they do not recognize it, there is far more that Cormier and Baer share in common than they do not; their differences seem nearly trivial in the face of it. In this sense, then, perhaps different values can coexist--the differences of neighbors, who might not always agree with each other, not even on the big things, but who still speak the same language and work for change, and for salvation, within the same system.

This, then, is the recognition by Mizner that the world is much bigger and much deeper than the so-called culture wars: that America, the idea of America, is much greater than our stilted, us versus them political discourse. In the final pages Bevy Baer reflects on a memory of her past, which becomes a metaphor for the novel in general, for this country, for life: "And that's all it would be: a moment. You couldn't separate the joy from the pain of knowing that the field, and the night, would come to an end."

I enjoyed this book, and I recommend it.

The other comments are right - would a story of a small town school board election be worth the time to read it? the book is much more than that - it is an exploration of how people think and feel, how they are more than the stereotypes you think they are, and how events have their own energy but are shaped by real people - suspense builds up toward the end, and it is very real suspense, about who will win the election - and I worried about how I would feel if my person lost - but the ending is magnificent - the election seems less important than the two candidates and their relationship, with each other and the town - the writing is trim and energetic, yet warm and humane - the characters grow and become more interesting - and it is a subject that is important in our country at thiis time.

Having read Mizner's previous novel, I expected to enjoy this latest work. What I didn't expect was to be so engrossed I couldn't put it down. The characters are strongly sketched and real, the community alive with the sadness and promise of change, and the behind-the-scenes views of today's politics right on.

So often, in politics large and small, we forget that the other side has its own story to tell. David Mizner helps bridge the gap of understanding between right and left, with humor and more than a mad dash of reality.

If you enjoy a good read with the lessons neatly tucked in rather than thrown in your face, this is an excellent choice.

I hesitated when I first picked up this book. The premise looked interesting but I had little faith that a writer could offer a balanced, honest, and worthwhile treatment of the cultural divide that defines much of contemporary politics. I expected the book to be filled with caricatures and gratuitous stereotypes that would elicit cheap laughs from folks in the author's "choir."

David Mizner avoids this trap and, instead, makes his characters human and real. He offers real insights into the fear that drives the motivations of each side, the compromises that successful politics often seems to require, the political necessities that create "strange bedfellows," and the loneliness that many of us feel as we try to find our place in a political system that has little tolerance for nuance or truth.

Mizner shows great compassion for his characters on both sides. I finished the book, not totally certain which side he was on. Maybe that's the point. Maybe most of us are on a side that is bigger than any one party allows us to be.

If you are looking for a jingoistic chuckle at expense of your political opponent, this is not the book for you. But, if you want a compelling and entertaining read that challenges your stereotypes, and provides insights into the lives of the characters who make up the larger cultural/political landscape, read "Hartsburg--USA."

I can't wait to read his next book!

Mizner is, I think, a diarist at Daily Kos, but to the extent that this is a liberal novel, it is subtly so. It is, ultimately, a 'message' novel, but in such an unassuming manner that you don't realize it until the last page. Mizner makes both his liberal and conservative leads as outsiders of sorts. The liberal defends his hometown against his pretentious friends; the conservative has a wild past. This makes both of them sympathetic.

The style of writing isn't too far from Tom Perrota (although the book is very different from Election). Readable and unpretentious, the prose doesn't dazzle prose, and there are few memorable quotes. The characters are well-drawn, but without great psychological depth. This isn't a 'literary' novel. That's not intended as a compliment or an insult; it's just a description.

This is a terrific new novel by David Mizner, with his characteristically vivid, compressed prose and remarkably sympathetic and complex characters. The novel humanely plays with the foibles and moral hypocrisy of both the American Left and Right. The protagonist, fighting his town's drift toward fundamentalism, is caught in a self destructive down-ward spiral, placing at risk the relationships with those he loves the most. His foe is an evangelical Christian mother of four, haunted by her damaged past. I'd also recommend Mizner's earlier novel, Political Animal, an energetic and hilarious romance set in the context of a political campaign.