Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States

by Colin Quinn

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From coast to coast and from roast to roast, comedian Colin Quinn shows what democracy looks like with equal-opportunity jabs at all 50 states. Find your state and see what he says. Chances are you're going to laugh.

In Colin Quinn's new book, the popular comedian, social commentator, and star of the shows Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional tackles the condition of our union today.

Utah: The Church of States
Vermont: The Old Hippie State
Florida: The Hot Mess State
Arizona: The Instagram Model State
Wisconsin: The Diet Starts Tomorrow State

The United States is in a fifty-states-wide couples’ counseling session, thinking about filing for divorce. But is that really what we want? Can a nation composed of states that are so different possibly hang together?

Colin Quinn, comedian, social commentator, and writer and star of Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional, calls us out state-by-state, from Connecticut to Hawaii. He identifies the hypocrisies inherent in what we claim to believe and what we actually do. Within a framework of big-picture thinking about systems of government—after all, how would you put this country together if you started from scratch today?—to dead-on observations about the quirks and vibes of the citizens in each region, Overstated skewers us all: red, blue, and purple. It’s ultimately infused with the same blend of optimism and practicality that sparked the U.S. into being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250268440
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/22/2020
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	15,901
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

COLIN QUINN is a stand-up comedian, writer, and performer whose thirty-year broadcast career has included stints on Saturday Night Live as the "Weekend Update" anchor, appearances on every cable comedy showcase and network talk show you can think of, including his own eponymous late-night show, and guest-starring roles in a wide swath of television shows and movies, including The Larry Sanders Show and Inside Amy Schumer. His specials Unconstitutional (2013) and The New York Story (2015, directed by Jerry Seinfeld) are available on Netflix, as is his one-man show Red State, Blue State (2019), which premiered to rave reviews in New York. The special was adapted into CNN’s first comedy special in May 2019 and started streaming on Netflix in August 2019.

Editorial Reviews

08/31/2020

Comedian Quinn (The Coloring Book) pokes fun at America’s regional idiosyncracies in this quip-filled survey of U.S. history. Tracking how the country got to the point “where everybody is broken up into cults trying to force their values and ideals onto each other,” Quinn takes on each state one by one. Noting that New Hampshire was the first state to declare its independence from England, he compares the December 1774 raid on Fort William and Mary to “going into a rough sports bar and turning off the game everyone’s watching and putting on The Devil Wears Prada.” He describes Idaho as having “the beauty of Wyoming combined with the boredom of Iowa” and calls out South Dakota for “riding off the fact that North Dakota looks at you like you are the hip brother.” Though Quinn holds out little hope for the long-term health of the union (“this country was supposed to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse”), he thinks Americans should take pride in the fact that “we let everybody have a personality.” Though more incisive in its cultural skewering than its political analysis, Quinn’s sardonic portrait of America in decline will resonate with readers suspicious of ideological stalwarts on both the right and the left. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"The author lands his punches...spares neither right- nor left-leaning terrain." —Kirkus Reviews

"Quinn pulls off the remarkable feat of being both very informative and thoroughly entertaining. This delightful read is highly recommended." —Booklist (starred review)

"A barstool philosopher." —New York Times

"Quinn is smart, funny, and endearingly manic." —Vulture

"Quinn has become the comic his peers will hang around to watch from the back of the room." —Forbes

"[Quinn's] monologues are comedy routines, to be sure . . . . But they’re also history lessons, and insightful ones at that." —The Hollywood Reporter

From the Publisher

2020-07-14
The comedian writes that “all state jokes used to be about New Jersey and now half the jokes are about Florida.” Then he disproves it by sending up each of the states in turn.

Quinn returns to and elaborates on a theme of his solo off-Broadway show Red State Blue State: the geopolitical rifts that divide America in the age of social media, Donald Trump, and a polarized citizenry. As the author sees it, everyone’s fair game now that keeping the nation together has come to resemble planning a wedding: “You have to have vegan meals for Oregon and Vermont and bourbon for Tennessee and Kentucky, and you have to make sure Utah is not next to Florida.” With barbs that modulate from rueful to sardonic, Quinn tweaks the states one by one, giving an offbeat view of the history and recent follies of each and interspersing his rundown with musings on federalism in general. Tobacco-rich North Carolina is “America’s Ashtray,” beer-and-bratwurst–loving Wisconsin is “The Diet Starts Tomorrow” state, and filmmaker-friendly Georgia is “Hollywood’s Booty Call.” The author lands his punches when he lampoons topics he knows well, such as U.S. elections: “They’re always held in an elementary school that brings back weird memories for everybody. Why not put them in bars?...Instead of stupid ‘I Voted’ buttons, they give you a drink ticket or rewards points at CVS.” Elsewhere, Quinn displays a too-shaky grip on states to satirize them convincingly—he researched North Dakota partly by looking at “some pictures on Trip Advisor”—and overuses devices like fat jokes, which he lobs at nine states. The problem isn’t that such jokes are unwelcome; it’s that many don’t ring true. For example, government studies show that at least two targets of his fat jokes—Hawaii and Massachusetts—rank among the nation’s 10 thinnest states.

A hot-and-cold roast of the 50 states that spares neither right- nor left-leaning terrain.

Kirkus Reviews

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