By virtue of the title alone, Living Blue in the Red States -- a collection of 21 "creative nonfiction" essays -- seems right up my alley. Here I am about the darkest blue liberal you can get but a a lifelong resident of one of the deepest red states, one which, since supporting FDR in 1936 , only voted Democrat in a presidential election in the Johnson-Goldwater race in 1964 -- and even then Goldwater got more votes than John Kennedy four years before.

Ultimately, though, the reason Living Blue in the Red States tends to succeed is because it tries to rise above politics and political labels. Many of the essays directly or indirectly emphasize the first word of the title. As such, the book may not only provide succor to the "blue" but insight for the "red."

While editor David Starkey breaks the essays down into the broad regions of West, Midwest and The South, his overarching aim was to pull together essays that "would be just as readable and relevant fifty years from now as they were the day the book was published." As a result, aside from the introduction, words such as George W. Bush, Iraq, neocon or New Orleans don't appear for more than 100 pages (although two of the last three essays specifically address Katrina and New Orleans). Perhaps because a number of the contributors are primarily poets, "blue" ideas and philosophies arise in contexts such as observing wild bears in Alaska, raccoon trapping in Nebraska and the life and death of a swamp in South Carolina.

This approach demonstrates that personal beliefs that make one blue in an artificially dichromatic America don't -- or shouldn't -- exist simply in the context of political campaigns. Rather, for better or worse, they also help shape our approaches to daily life without ever being in the forefront or a battering ram. In fact, several contributors challenge or find fault with the concept of a blue-red distinction.

Balance of review at http://prairieprogressive.com/2007/09/05/book-review-living-blue-in-the-red-stat...