Radical Red - by Nathan Dixon

About the Book

"As income inequality soars, as industries become further mechanized, as the populace cries out for some semblance of a social safety net and corporations complain of too much regulation, we are long overdue for a strong dose of protest literature. This winner of the 15th annual BOA Short Fiction Prize features linked stories that indict the ultraconservative movement that emerged at the end of the Cold War and extends into present day. One strand of narratives follows a cohort of tea party conservatives-a politician, a radioman, and a televangelist-as their hyperbolic language shapes the world around them and leads to episodes of time travel and body horror. The second strand follows individuals victimized by conservative policy: their voices, their futures, their very bodies stripped from their possession. The final strand investigates the ways in which young conservatives have adapted the nostalgic rhetoric of their forebears to carry on the twin projects of minority oppression and environmental degradation-both of which they couch in the language of "freedom." Radical Red is set in the South and parodies the stereotypes that are still so prevalent here. Although the characters are more than mere ciphers, they move through their semi-speculative world to illustrate ideas in the same way Richard Wright and Ursala Le Guin's characters do"--

Book Synopsis

As income inequality soars, as industries become further mechanized, as the populace cries out for some semblance of a social safety net and corporations complain of too much regulation, we are long overdue for a strong dose of protest literature. This
winner of the 15th annual BOA Short Fiction Prize features linked
stories that indict the ultraconservative movement that emerged at the end of
the Cold War and extends into present day.

One strand of narratives follows a cohort of tea party
conservatives-a politician, a radioman, and a
televangelist--as their hyperbolic language
shapes the world around them and leads to episodes of time travel and body
horror. The second strand follows individuals victimized by conservative
policy: their voices, their futures, their very bodies stripped from their
possession. The final strand investigates the ways in which young conservatives
have adapted the nostalgic rhetoric of their forebears to carry on the twin
projects of minority oppression and environmental degradation--both of which they couch in the language of "freedom."

The book is set in the South and parodies the stereotypes
that are still so prevalent here. Although the characters are more than mere
ciphers, they move through their semi-speculative world to illustrate ideas in
the same way as Richard Wright and Ursala Le Guin's characters.

Review Quotes

"Nate
Dixon's masterfully crafted stories back readers into a corner and make them
squirm. Challenging and subversive, Radical Red picks at the
absurd contradictions and injustices that are woven into the fabric of American
democracy." -Maggie Su, author
of Blob: A Love Story

"Radical
Red is a corrective to a most peculiar trend in American letters. For close
to four decades, writers have incrementally squeezed themselves into tighter
perceptual and experiential corners. We call it, 'staying in one's lane.' While
it's true you can't tell another's story, it's all in vain if our stories don't
move others, spark the imagination, move the heart, and keep the American
conversation alive. Nathan Dixon's galvanic, strange, and beautifully written
collection says, 'I hear you, cousins. Let's keep this thing going.'" -Reginald McKnight, author of He
Sleeps

"Philip Roth famously said of
American Reality that it instills in the American Fiction writer a kind of
professional envy. Nathan Dixon, in the extra extreme fictions found in Radical Red, creates a Reality American
Reality must envy for real. These fictions are squared dances of Sydenham's
chorea, crowd sourced unbroken fevered dreams on steroids. All the circuit
breakers breaking, all the clocks persistently melting. Dixon is a demented
Donald Barthelme dispensing meter-read disgraces, a media influencer Vonnegut
doing unstuck loose-limbed tap dances on Bizarro TikTok." -Michael Martone, author of Plain
Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana and The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne

About the Author

Nathan
Dixon received his PhD in English literature and creative writing
from the University of Georgia. His first book, Radical Red, won
the BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize. His creative work has appeared in The
Georgia Review, Fence, Tin House, Carolina
Quarterly, Quarterly West, Redivider, and
elsewhere. His critical/academic work has appeared in MELUS Journal, 3: AM, Transmotion,
and Renaissance Papers. He currently teaches at North Carolina Central University and
lives with his family in Durham, NC.