DIRTBAG

Acerbic, observant tale of coming of age amid “the unlikely rise (and tragic fall) of a post-2008 wave of social democratic politics.”

Frost, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast, delivers a witty, self-knowing, digressive memoir, noting how her ADHD–inflected mindset has “been given free rein to dictate the literary style of this book.” While candid about the ups and downs of her personal life, she maintains an impassioned focus on progressive politics: “Socialism for me is simply a chore that needs to be done.” She affectingly describes her upbringing in an economically faded Indiana, influenced by her working-class, pro-union extended family. “I first threw myself into politics,” she writes, “out of frustration with an economy that sabotaged the talents, desires, and ambitions of so many people I knew and loved.” She realized mainline progressivism’s limitations upon moving to New York, working for the Working Families Party, then the Democratic Socialists of America, and, later, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. Along the way, she participated in Occupy Wall Street, and she tartly depicts a transition from exciting to pedantic, noting, “every group at Occupy was always unstable, always vulnerable to tyrannical personalities and disruption.” In 2016, the Sanders phenomenon seemed a “realignment campaign” that would “show Americans they could demand more than what the Democrats offered.” The odds against Sanders’ campaigns (and their sabotage by Democratic leaders) left Frost drained and frustrated. “He was an honest man in the public eye,” she writes, “and he was exposing the venality and corruption of the DNC.” The author peppers the narrative with incisive analytical digressions and unsparing critiques of politics, including the outsized influence of careerists and other toxic personalities. Underneath it all, she remains optimistic: “if you ever feel your faith depleted, you can have some of mine.”

Occasionally unfocused, but an informed and original progressive voice.