Union

March 23, 2020
Yale Law School classmates Blashek, a conservative former Marine, and Haugh, a liberal Berkeley, Calif., native, debut with an earnest and open-minded chronicle of their cross-country road trips in search of political common ground. Between 2016 and 2019, the authors visited 45 states and Mexico, meeting people of all backgrounds and engaging in long—and occasionally heated—debates over climate change, immigration, police brutality, government regulation, and Trumpism. In Portland, Maine, they talk with a lobsterman about the impacts of tourism, real estate development, and overfishing on the seafood industry. They volunteer at a service center for South and Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico; attend a Trump rally in Phoenix, Ariz.; and visit with recently paroled women making handbags at a nonprofit rehabilitation program in Detroit. Their conversations and experiences reveal numerous ideological fault lines across the country, as well as “a deep well of feeling” for America’s civic virtues and “a spirit of rebirth and renewal.” Though the book’s reportage is more scattershot than comprehensive, Blashek and Haugh’s portrait of their friendship reveals both the challenges and benefits of “argu passionately while respecting the other side.” Readers dismayed by today’s hyperpartisanship will find solace in this sober-minded yet hopeful account. Agent: Elias Altman, Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents.

April 1, 2020
On road trips across the country, two friends confront their deeply held beliefs. Making their book debut, former Marine Blashek, now an investor in New York City, and Haugh, a journalist who was an intern in the Obama White House and served on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, recount the evolution of their friendship, and their views about America, as they traveled to 44 states over the course of three years. The authors met at Yale Law School, and though they thought one another interesting and sympathetic, they found themselves frustratingly enmeshed in "suffocating ideological debates, politics, and the drawing of lines." Blashek, a Republican, was quick to defend Donald Trump from attacks, suspicious of Haugh's liberal stance. Haugh, raised by an activist single mother in Berkeley, "had grown up among protests." While Blashek believed that Trump's policy on immigration stemmed from a commitment to protect Americans from criminals, Haugh insisted that Trump was racist and, moreover, stoked racism among his followers. "Disagreements lingered," the authors write, growing "deeper and more painful" as their arguments intensified. In 2017, with their plans for the future in flux, they decided to set off in search of the nation they felt they hardly knew. Their travels took them to a Trump rally in Phoenix, one week after the Charlottesville incident, where, to their surprise, Trump delivered "a script of unity and hope." Despite protestors and heavily armed militiamen, they witnessed people engaged in passionate--but respectful--argument, unlike the conflicts reported by the media. "They were actually listening to one another," the authors note. As they traveled, discovering communities bound by "a deep reservoir of social capital," they learned that "finding common ground wasn't about getting to agreement. It was about getting to the point where disagreement didn't matter as much." Both men, genial guides, ended their travels with a sense of hope about "how [things] could be if we act together to make it so." An insightful look at contemporary America.

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June 19, 2020

Here is the tale of two students who met at Yale Law School, each representing a wing of our political system, and each then experiencing the wondrous complexity of the United States but viewed from their own perspective. Attorney and former marine Blashek, a Republican, joins college friend Haugh, a staunch Democrat and former intern in the Obama White House, to begin this account tracing their time in New Haven, CT, as well as travels throughout the country, from Pheonix to Detroit; Portland, ME; New Orleans; Tulsa; and more. On the road they meet interesting people and discover more about themselves in the process. In New Orleans, both Blashek and Haugh are forced to reconcile with history and what the past says about the future. Ultimately, both men find their differences are not as important as what binds them together as citizens of this complex nation. Overall, readers are left with a message of hope, that despite differences we are more alike than different, as Americans coming to grips with the challenges of our contemporary world. VERDICT Spanning political science, memoir, and travelog, this deeply personal account should find a broad audience.--Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

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