Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America

Borchert, a former assistant editor at FSG, debuts with a wide-ranging and deeply researched study of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), a New Deal program to provide work for unemployed writers. Contending that “all the tensions of American society in the thirties were stuffed into the project’s offices,” Borchert focuses on a series of state guides produced by the FWP, spotlighting, among other bits of Americana, a municipally owned hydroelectric plant in Idaho, Black storefront churches in Florida, and the arrival of African American migrants from the Deep South in Harlem. The project employed established authors (Zora Neale Hurston) and up-and-comers (Nelson Algren), as well as recent college graduates and out-of-work teachers, and gave shape to Ralph Ellison’s literary aspirations and directly inspired Richard Wright’s Native Son. Delving deep into the program’s day-to-day operations, Borchert describes the difficulties some regional offices had in hiring competent writers, and tensions over whether the goal of the FWP was “simply to provide work or to nurture the creative energies of the people it employed.” Though long-winded at times, Borchert’s lucid prose brings the FWP and its colorful personalities to life. Literature and history buffs will learn much from this immersive portrait of 1930s America. (June)