Better Off Without ‘Em
A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
Simon and Schuster, April 2012
Chuck Thompson–dubbed “savagely funny” by the New York Times and “wickedly entertaining” by the San Francisco Chronicle–spent two years traveling the American South to determine whether, as he’d long suspected but not yet proven, the whole country might be better off letting Dixieland make good on its two-hundred-years-old threat to seceded. The result is a long overdue and serious inquiry into national divides that is delibearetely provocative and uproariously funny while making a compelling case for “a kind of no-fault divorce for nation-states: no hard feelings, just two adults who can’t quite make the relationship work, shaking hands and walking away” (The Oxford American).
“As if Kevin Phillips’s American Theocracy were being narrated by Rolling Stone’s Matt Tabibi…Viciously funny and thoroughly tasteless, it’s an easy and cathartic read for anyone fed up wit the Confederate influence on the national discourse.”—Washington Monthly
“[Thompson] is serious about his argument and has more than enough ammunition.”
—The New York Times
“A fun, engaging read—let’s call it speculative nonfiction—and would make for a fine night of beer-fueled argument.”
—Wonkette.com