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. Thiswinner of the 15th annual BOA Short Fiction Prize features linkedstories that indict the ultraconservative movement that emerged at the end ofthe Cold War and extends into present day.

One strand of narratives follows a cohort of tea partyconservatives—a politician, a radioman, and atelevangelist—as their hyperbolic languageshapes the world around them and leads to episodes of time travel and bodyhorror. The second strand follows individuals victimized by conservativepolicy: their voices, their futures, their very bodies stripped from theirpossession. The final strand investigates the ways in which young conservativeshave adapted the nostalgic rhetoric of their forebears to carry on the twinprojects 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 stereotypesthat are still so prevalent here. Although the characters are more than mereciphers, they move through their semi-speculative world to illustrate ideas inthe same way as Richard Wright and Ursala Le Guin’s characters.