A Flyby Analysis of Flyover Country: New at Reason

Read Bill Steigerwald’s withering review of the new book Our Towns by James and Deborah Fallows in the latest issue of Reason. A snippet:

With the Fallowses in the cockpit, you’d expect a smart, serious, and enlightening work of high-quality journalism—a 408-page Atlantic cover piece. James has 11 previous books under his belt, and Deborah’s writings about women, education, and travel have appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, and elsewhere. Yet this collection of small-town snapshots is a plane wreck.

Our Towns sometimes reads like a bunch of travel notes stapled together chronologically. Other times it feels like it was written from 2,500 feet. It’s overloaded with chamber-of-commerce details and laden with dull quotes from local politicians and other civic big shots. Repetitive and often stale, it contains no edge, no humor, no hate, not even any photos. It’s the worst kind of serious journalism: the boring kind.

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