RADIOLAND

A crusading lawyer attempts to bring down a conservative-radio juggernaut in Elzey’s political novel.

After five decades as a lawyer, Harry Chalberg is about to take on the most important case of his career. The 79-year-old came out of retirement after his son and daughter-in-law were murdered by a White nationalist, and Harry has searched for a way to hold the propagandists that inspired that killer accountable. He finally has the opportunity in Morton v. New Signal News, a lawsuit against the media company that broadcasts programs like the right-wing Cal Brown Show. It’s a long-shot case, but with the help of his longtime assistant, Mariam Katz, Harry hopes to slow the creep of extremism in U.S. politics. However, he’s going up against some powerful people, including the billionaire Austin brothers—who built an international corporate empire out of their father’s Fresno, California–based tractor supply company—and Cal Brown himself, a bombastic radio host who rose from humble origins to the top of the Chicago radio world. He later conquered America with a TV show aimed at people who feel the country’s conservative values are in danger. Can Harry prove that Cal and his backers are contributing to the political violence ripping through America? Elzey’s prose is breezy and smooth, and he proves to be adept at replicating the cadences and arguments of talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh: “Ladies and gentlemen out there in Radioland….Here we go again the snowflakes won’t shut up about socialized medicine and the creation of a Nanny state. Do we want a system like Canada, the UK or France?” The novel effectively manages to dramatize not only the current state of conservative media, but also the ways in which it rose to its current heights of popularity; it does so mainly by relating the backstories of various players. There are elements of the novel that feel a bit too pat, and the characters sometimes come off as stereotypical. Overall, though, the book is a persuasive piece of political fiction.

A readable social novel that effectively examines the consequences of conservative media.