Republic of Outsiders

Starred review from May 6, 2013
Veteran journalist Quart (Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child) focuses on individuals who “have created unusual, idiosyncratic identities” to tackle underrepresented issues and accomplish diverse goals. A perceptive, analytical reporter, Quart profiles a wide range of subjects: transgender activists, who “refuse the neat boxes of gender identity”; the “neurodiverse,” who try to redefine how people think about autism and normality in general; independent filmmakers and musicians, who eliminate middlemen by making and distributing their work themselves; animal-rights futurists who are attempting to create a “meat” product from animal cells in a process that harms no animals; “mad priders” and “Icarists,” who emphasize community and peer service over clinical treatment of the mentally ill; and a former Wall Street trader who is trying to create nonpredatory financial networks for the needy. Quart’s profiles are thoroughly researched and admirably evenhanded. She investigates the vast range of subcultures linked and enabled by the Web, showing that the line between insiders and outsiders is rather fluid when we live in a “clever capitalist society that shapes our attempts to resist.” Railing against modern institutions, from too-big-to-fail banks to the superficial, profit-driven entertainment industry, she effectively examines how outsider thinking can supplement, and in some cases supplant, mainstream methods. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency.

July 1, 2013
The ways in which a cross-section of intrepid renegades finds contentment and success by swimming upstream. Journalist Quart (Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child, 2006) highlights a host of individuals she views as part of a continuing, modern rebellion movement that's incrementally restructuring the country from the inside out. They are the social outsiders who've created an "America within America." The author deftly examines how these cultural oddities and outcasts bond through their separate differences yet remain determined to find common ground, whether through agricultural breakthroughs, mental deficiencies or the distillation of their creative preferences. The examples she presents are as diverse as the message of superfunctional nonconformity they are intent on disbursing to society at large. Quart describes time spent with a group of "Mad Priders" who dismiss the conventional clinical process for diagnosing and treating the mentally ill; a female-to-male transgendered activist; an autistic woman fighting to redefine how mainstream society views the "neurodiverse" community; substantive, un-Hollywood film collectives broadening the independent genre; and enterprising agricultural and animal rights innovators developing "faux meat." Quart's associations enhance and illuminate the plight of the free-thinker; even within the brevity of a paragraph, the author generously commemorates even more outliers: the right-to-lifers, married gay couples, DIY birthers, gun stockpilers and the "freegans" who dumpster-dive for meals. Quart asserts that while "their trust in authority faltered and they fell back on their own intelligence to survive," the spectrum of these individuals' reach in society is just beginning to manifest itself. A thought-provoking examination of counterculture through the eyes of those living life just outside the conventional box.

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July 1, 2013
Once past a rather long-winded introduction, Quart settles into a delightful rhythm, profiling fascinating people and sharing their distinct ways of forming connections and cultivating lives outside the mainstream. Quart's subjects are often living thoroughly twenty-first-century lives, relying on the Internet and social media to form groups, reach out to like-minded individuals, and share their stories. But the author strays far from the expected, including the producers of the indie-film triumph Beasts of the Southern Wild and Kickstarter phenom musician Amanda Palmer. Readers will be surprised to see thoughtful inclusions of the neurodiverse (individuals diagnosed within the autism spectrum) and those defying standard classifications of serious mental illness and challenging our understanding of schizophrenia and bipolarity. More conventionally, Quart dives into the crafting world of Etsy and urban farming in New York City and Detroit, showing time and again that thinking and acting outside the box are often the only way many people can succeed professionally and in their communities. Lots of good food for thought and solid inspiration for those who feel stifled by traditional choices.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)