Review of "Tropic of Kansas: A Novel" by Christopher Brown

Tropic of Kansas is a great read. It both stirs up our worst nightmares of the present and calms them down by accelerating current social and political trends into a fantasy of our near-future. In Christopher Brown’s brave new world, drones now patrol land, water, and sky, a savior CEO rules from the White House, the gas and oil industry and agribusiness dominate the economy deepening environmental ruin, entrepreneurs profit from political strife, and local militias coordinate with police forces and national security agencies to suppress political opposition.

Then, like now, far from Washington movements in the heartland make and break the political system. But as the story moves forward, some courageously mount an alternate grid with abandoned analog technologies and work to fashion a progressive political future: from the Canadian border and Minneapolis down to Saint Louis and Texas to, finally, the  devastated city of New Orleans, the last stronghold of the resistance. As we follow the fates of the central characters towards the climax, the writing simply gets better and better; here is a view of the landscape seen from a vehicle heading east along Interstate 10 towards the Big Easy through the Louisiana bayous transformed by oil the fossil fuel industry: “At dusk you could see the alligators out there, and the big wild birds that looked like dinosaurs. Old houses with legs and boats for cars. And the petrochemical extraction machines shoved into the biome like giant robot mosquitos” (307). Enjoy.