Conversations With George Bush: Beyond Polls And Partisanship, Real Life in the USA

In an effort to reconcile the patriotic feelings stirred by 9/11 with the alienation of her expatriate upbringing, Martha Boone Mattia embarked on an odyssey—to learn about her country by looking at it through others’ eyes. Mattia set out to probe the character of George Bush, average American, the guy who can't seem to get a pizza delivered because he shares a name with the leader of the free world. Her remarkable narrative account of those interviews provides a singular opportunity to listen to the voices of America at the dawn of the twenty-first century. From the nineteen-year-old college student in Missouri to the fifty-six-year-old bipolar housewife in Maryland to the eighty-nine-year-old WWII veteran in Virginia, Conversations with George Bush contains the cross-section of lives and the candid observations that characterize our vibrant and often contentious society. Woven through these accounts is the beautifully rendered chronicle of Mattia’s own journey of discovery. She sought to answer lifelong questions about her country and her countrymen: Who are we? What matters to us? And what does it mean to be an American?