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Dirtbag

Essays

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

This program is read by the author.
The complete story of the victories and failures of millennial socialism, as told by the writer who witnessed it all firsthand.

Amber A'Lee Frost came to New York City as a working class activist in a punk band, arriving just before the start of Occupy Wall Street—the first major event in decades for a socialist movement that was nearly extinct at the turn of the century. She's been at the vanguard of radical politics ever since, as a writer, veteran member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and cohost of the wildly popular Chapo Trap House podcast. She has reported on millennial activism everywhere from the sunny streets of Havana, to the Labour Party's unexpected victory in the UK, to small towns in her home state of Indiana.

Dirtbag
is a much-anticipated debut from one of the greatest emerging writers in modern socialism. This memoir is more than Frost's story; it is also the story of the only movement that has a chance to reshape our world. Both are chock-full of momentary triumphs, stupid decisions, new international friendships and rivalries, struggle, joy, setbacks, and heartbreak. Both are related with magnetic prose, remarkable candor, and unflappable humor.
Throughout it all, Frost burned the candle at both ends. She kissed a man in the rain at a train stop after he sang her "The Internationale," and gave herself hangovers that left her begging for death. But all of the late nights, heated debates, and joyous camaraderie was set against the unmistakable sense that somehow, socialism was winning.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 9, 2023
      Chapo Trap House podcaster Frost debuts with an irreverent and acerbic take on the contemporary American socialist movement from the inside of the “dirtbag left” (a term Frost coined). In the book’s first section, she recounts her working-class upbringing in Indiana with a single mother; part two covers her history with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Occupy Wall Street movement. In part three, Frost ascribes her support of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns to seeing “an opportunity for a righteous underdog to maybe right some of the wrongs in our country,” and links her penchant for “florid storytelling” to such influences as Hunter S. Thompson and Vivian Gornick. Throughout, Frost is cocksure in tone and style, even when she tiptoes into uncomfortable territory (she bristles at the capitalization of Black—“as if all Black people hail from Blackistan or something”). Still, she admits early on that a “book about a millennial socialist’s adventures in left politics” is “hardly reinventing the wheel,” and describes the self-doubt she felt “the moment I signed a book contract for a ‘memoir’ ”—one that was “difficult to start writing and even more difficult to finish.” While she’s often funny, intelligent company, her uncertainty lends the proceedings an air of defensiveness. This will please Frost’s admirers, but is unlikely to win over the naysayers.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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