The Stranger Next Door
The Story of a Small Town’s Battle Over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights
Documenting a Christian conservative campaign in a small lumber community in the Northwest, The Stranger Next Door explores clashing understandings of religion and sexuality in American culture. In a book that combines strong on-the-ground research and lucid analysis with a novelist's imaginative sympathy, Arlene Stein sets out to discover why a small town with no apparent queer population became the site of a bitter battle over gay rights.
Documenting a Christian conservative campaign in a small lumber community in the Northwest, The Stranger Next Door explores clashing understandings of religion and sexuality in American culture. In a book that combines strong on-the-ground research and lucid analysis with a novelist's imaginative sympathy, Arlene Stein sets out to discover why a small town with no apparent queer population became the site of a bitter battle over gay rights.
Ruth Benedict Award, American Anthropological Association
Honor Award, American Library Association Gustavus Myers Human Rights Book Award, Honorable Mention |
"By combining the meticulousness of an ethnographer with a writer's commitment to storytelling, Stein has written a book that's surprisingly compelling-or, better, compelling because it's surprising."
— David L. Kirp, The Nation “Although she is as closely observant of social details as a good novelist, Stein also has a fine command of theory. One of the great pleasures of The Stranger Next Door is to find oneself walking the wet, pine-smelling streets of Timbertown in the exhilarating company of Big Picture thinkers from Georg Simmel to Michel Foucault.” — Jonathan Raban, author of Passage to Juneau and Bad Land "How a small Oregon town with few gays and no open ones should be torn into warring factions over an antigay initiative is a conundrum that Arlene Stein’s book brilliantly solves. By interpreting what this issue symbolizes she leads us into a deeper understanding of the tensions and unsolved problems of contemporary American society, especially among those who have not share significantly in our recent economic ‘boom.’ This book displays interpretive sociology at its best." — Robert N. Bellah, coauthor of Habits of the Heart and The Good Society "A fascinating look at the psychology of fear and persuasion." — Monica Drake, The Oregonian "Every liberal ought to read this. . . . Arlene Stein provides an important depiction of life in a town which became a vortex of national and local issues." — Tex Sample, Christian Century "What's especially valuable about Stein's book is her detailed look at each individual's take on the meaning of the campaign and her patient exploration of the wide variety of forces shifting the ground of these people's lives." — E. J. Graff, American Prospect "In her cogent analysis of just how sickeningly simple it is to create an 'other,' a 'stranger' upon whom blame for our problems may be shifted, Stein has touched to the very heart of the social upheaval in America today." — Dan Hays, Salem (Oreg.) Statesman-Journal |