Sweet Heaven When I Die
(W.W. Norton, 2011)
“The book belongs to the tradition of long-form, narrative journalism best exemplified by writers such as Joan Didion, John McPhee, Norman Mailer and Sharlet’s contemporary David Samuels. Sharlet deserves a place alongside such masters, for he has emerged as a master investigative stylist and one of the shrewdest commentators on religion’s underexplored realms.”
–Michael Washburn, Washington Post
“For Sharlet, the story of American religion is not a polarized one of fundamentalists vs. secularists. It’s a vast landscape, and each essay in his remarkable new collection of literary journalism, “Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between’’, explores a different crag or cranny of it…. taken together, these essays begin to give shape to a multifaceted America that is so much more than east and west, left and right, religious and secular. And there’s no better guide to this ‘country in between.’’’
–Brook Wilensky-Lanford, Boston Globe
“Superb… compelling… stunning… a fine book, by a deeply thoughtful writer.”
–Steve Yarbrough, Oregonian
“In a crowded field, ‘Sweet Heaven’ stands with the few books that aren’t afraid to look at the realities of American religion.”
–Malcolm Harris, The Daily
“Part reporter, part prophet, Jeff Sharlet is an American visionary in the lineage that runs from Twain to Robinson Jeffers to Sam Shepard and Joan Didion. In Sweet Heaven When I Die, he scours the desert margins of our culture, politics, and religion, training his eye on outlaws, anarchists, fanatics, and saints. In this way, he reveals the unexpected shape of our nation’s center, which is to say, our heart.”
– Peter Trachtenberg, author of 7 Tattoos and The Book of Calamities
Buy from Amazon.
The Family : The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
Buy The Family on Amazon.com or Booksense.com
Read an excerpt from The Family
Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible
Buy Killing the Buddha on Amazon.com or Booksense.com
Read an excerpt from Killing the Buddha
Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith
edited by Jeff Sharlet & Peter Manseau, with an introduction by Jeff Sharlet
Buy Believer, Beware
The Hammer Song
Forthcoming from Basic Books, 2012
Lee Hays
What They Wanted
Forthcoming from W.W. Norton, 2011
WHAT THEY WANTED is a collection of narrative nonfiction stories linked by my fascination with the tension and intimacy between despair and desire. I’ve been writing long form narrative nonfiction since I joined the staff of a San Diego alt weekly in 1992. The stories I’ve chosen for WHAT THEY WANTED are those the reporting of which mattered to me most. The subjects of these stories are those for whom I had to cross the lines of conventional journalism, restless souls I could only understand by putting my own beliefs on the line. In 12 different ways their subjects mirror my own concern for the compromises we call hope — the compromises, to paraphrase Joan Didion famous line about stories, that we make in order to live.
ANTHOLOGIES
Boob Jubilee: The Mad Cultural Politics of the New Economy: Salvos from the Baffler
Edited by Thomas Frank and David Mulcahey
Includes “Paradise Shot to Hell: The Westbrook Pegler Story,” by Jeff Sharlet
Buy Boob Jubilee on Amazon.com
Submersion Journalism: Reporting in the Radical First Person from Harper’s Magazine
Edited by Bill Wasik
Includes “Jesus Plus Nothing,” by Jeff Sharlet
Buy Submersion Journalism on Amazon.com
Half/Life: Jew-Ish Tales from Almost, Not Quite, and In-Between
Edited by Laurel Snyder
Includes “You Must Draw a Long Bead to Shoot a Fish,” by Jeff Sharlet
Buy Half/Life on Powell’s.com or Amazon.com
Everything You Know About God is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion
Edited by Russ Kick
Includes “Broward County,” by Jeff Sharlet (with Peter Manseau)
Buy Everything You Know About God is Wrong on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com
Da Capo Best Music Writing 2008: The Year’s Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop, Country and More
Edited by Nelson George
Includes “The People’s Singer”
Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004: The Year’s Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop, Country and More
Edited by Mickey Hart and Paul Bresnick
Includes “Big World” by Jeff Sharlet
Buy Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004 on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com