David Mizner's premise in Hartsurg, USA is engaging -- "Liberal, underachieving movie critic Wallace Cormier has returned to his hometown to raise his daughter and go bowling every Saturday night with his high school friends. When his beloved Cineplex, the only theater in town, becomes a church, Cormier decides that for once in his life, he needs to take action, a decision that pits him against conservative Christian Bevy Baer in the town's school board election. It is only a matter of time before the election gains national prominence -- and past secrets surface."
Neil Gordon, author of The Company You Keep, wrote of Hartsburg, USA: "Mizner's feat -- allowing red state readers to care about wholly convincing blue state characters, and bringing red state characters vividly to life for blue readers -- is an unusually accomplished piece of fiction, impossible to put down, highly relevant to us all today."
It happens, in writing such a work, for the author to be a political junkie. The author of the novel Political Animal, Mizner is a former campaign worker and speechwriter.
