Review of “The Great State of West Florida” by Kent Wascom
“Mad Max” Meets Ultra-Republican Floridians in a Not So Distant Future
The critic reviews posited that this book has a quality akin to “Mad Max” and is on a “stage set for the Hatfields and McCoys” and I could not agree more. Florida already maintains a position as a state full of insane southerners with a penchant for driving strange vehicles through the wilderness and a love of guns and drones. This takes the culture of Florida and dials it up to 11, and sets the stage for civil war. It is undoubtedly an intense book. The Wild West influence is clear but instead of riding to battle on a trusty old bay, it’s a Ford F-150 or a cherry red ATV with flame decals, and armed with a machine gun.
The political landscape around West Florida captures a generational long battle between a family fallen from grace who believed in indigenous rights and respecting the inherent wildness of the state and its people and the pinnacles of Floridian capitalism and gentrification. The internal strife and conflict within the family is fascinating and heart breaking. Following young “Murderbaby” Rally, we learn the truth of a hotly contested narrative surrounding the brutal killing of the majority of this family and their tragic fall from power of West Florida. I’m writing this now having finished it a month or two ago so the details are now fuzzy. But at the core: it was an intense, gory book filled with violence and tragedy and a complicated commentary of the politics of both the US, broadly, and the South. I finished it on the night of the election and it landed heavily on the eve of Trump’s re-election. It certainly does not paint a pretty picture of ultra-Republican, megachurch-going, redneck racists in pursuit of nothing but profit and control. Folks who shred the environment and its inhabitants (people and animals) apart while preaching their innocence and commitment to community. It’s a seething review and paints a scary picture of a not-so-unrealistic future reality. The Great State of West Florida under their rule does not seem so unimaginable and that’s perhaps the scariest thing.
All in all, an intense but fascinating read. Worth a read again but go in prepared. It hits a lot of big trigger warners (gun violence, killings, rape, and the fall of the United States of America into a dark, hateful path).
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
