Customer Reviews

Redneck Heaven: Portrait of a Vanishing Culture

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"Redneck Heaven" is a wonderful, enlightening look at an often misunderstood major segment of our culture. Ms. Bultman does us a great deed in separating Rednecks from "trailer trash" and helping us see that more of us are rednecks than we might want to admit. After reading this book, I was quick to realize how many people could be defined by the information provided (one of the first people I recognized as a true redneck was Charlton Heston). Congratulations to Bultman for elevating this segment of our society from the stigma it undeservingly suffered for so long.

Redneck Heaven was a disappointing hodge-podge on the sector of the American population that consider themselves "rednecks." Though it promises to deliver the goods, it consistently falls short, and the blame for this is as much the editor's as the author's.

Bultman's chief theme here is that American rednecks are a continuation of ancient Celtic tribes. While it's an interesting theory, Bultman doesn't seem to have the scholarship to back it up. Nevertheless, she frequently returns to it.By the end of the book, the reader is sorely tired of this deathless refrain.

Credibility is further strained by numerous fact errors (Boadicea, the warrior queen of the British tribe, the Iceni, is not spelled Boudicae and not pronounced Boodika, as the author instructs, "I'm a W-O-M-A-N" was popularized by Peggy Lee in the fifties and not Maria Muldaur in the seventies, calves do have hooves when they are born . . .) The problem with these sorts of errors is that they cast a pall on the authority Redneck Heaven purports to have. The much vaunted "interviews with famous rednecks" appear only in the first few chapters and come across as name dropping.

Finally, the production values of Redneck Heaven are decidedly substandard. Pages are bound out of order, photographs lack cutlines and sidebars are inserted in such a way that the reader has to stop and search to keep his place in the text.

This is a fascinating subject and Ms. Bultman has a wealth of wonderful material here. It's a real letdown that it wasn't a better-organized, better-produced and thoroughly fact-checked book. What a worthy title it would have been.

redneck heaven looks at our national celt vs anglo saxon cultural contradictions. why are we obsessed with paula jones instead of looking hard at how the dow jones is screwing small town america? are the rednecks who fight our wars, make our jeans and harleys this society's villians or corporate america's victims? read this book and find out.

I read the book in one sitting although I had not started with that idea. I was fasinated with the way in which the author was able to make a true study of the redneck cultlure meld into a book with comic overtones. It is hard to put this work into any specific catagory.

Baker Wills St. Louis , Mo.

Compelling portrait of America's rednecks filled with in-your-face wisdom, humor and an ample dose of Celtic history. Author is obviously comfortable with allowing her subjects to speak without becoming judgemental. She won me over to the cause

Amusing and often touching look inside a culture of good-old-boys. This book shows the roots of this group, tracing their history back to the Celts; their love of iron tools and even the origins of BBQ! No doubt due to the clanish nature of rednecks they have remained untainted in so many ways from the on-slaughts of popular culture. They remain truelly unique. A great reference book for that odd-natured cousin and in-law

This is a thorough delving into the origin and history of the truly American redneck culture. It is an accurate study of who and what redneck culture actually is. All of the facts are well documented. The style in which the book is written makes it funny and very readable while showing that this redneck culture is probably the only true 100% American undiluted culture.
Carlos Ramon

Wow. I never knew redneck women were so smart. They can be the boss and have fun at the same time. Didn't know this was a self-help book, but it is and how. The writer should win the Pulitzer for cool. And funny. It's the funniest darn book I've ever read.

A really great read for those of us who think of ourselves as "jist American." A kind of "Roots" for the Scotch Irish!