Rolling Stone writer Wright (Generation Kill
), offers 12 tales of outsiders, people more or less living off the grid in mainstream America. He profiles, for example, a member of Delta Company in Kandahar in southeastern Afghanistan dueling with the Taliban; a fun-loving regular at a dance hall; a committed local anarchist engaging in street theater at a global trade conference; a pastor of the Aryan Nation preaching against the evils of blacks and Jews and other nonwhite “mud people”; and two HIV-infected former porn stars. As a former editor of Hustler
magazine, Wright recognizes the magic in Seth Warshavsky, a con man with a mind full of schemes in the porn world of bartered desire. There is some top-drawer writing among weaker essays, but the total effect reflects a literary rebel who wants to break convention. (Apr.)