Joe Bageant

Joe Bageant (1946–2011) (pronounced "bay-gent") He attended John Handley High School there, but his teachers told him that he was not cut out for college, and his parents pressured him to work from an early age. Bageant quit school, joined the navy, and got married. He was discharged in the 1960s.

Bageant bought an old school bus and headed for San Francisco. En route, the bus broke down in Boulder, Colorado. He and his young family lived there for several years, sometimes on the bus, before moving to an Indian reservation in Idaho. During that time, Bageant worked at blue collar jobs until, in the mid-1970s, he broke his back and had to lie flat for months while he recovered. It was then that he started honing his writing skills, using his convalescence to perfect a prose style that would, over the years, acquire a cult following.

In 2001, Bageant moved back to Winchester.

Progressive author In Deer Hunting With Jesus, Bageant discusses how the Democratic Party lost the political support of poor rural whites and how the Republican Party has convinced them to "vote against their own economic self-interest". The book is mainly centered on his hometown of Winchester.

Bageant frequently appeared as a commentator on radio and television internationally and wrote a progressive online column which was distributed to hundreds of blogs and websites. He maintained his own blog joebageant.net, assisted by Ken Smith, who continued editing the blog after Bageant's death.

Later life During the last years of his life, Bageant lived in Ajijic, a small town on Lake Chapala in central Mexico.

On March 27, 2011, it was announced on his website that Bageant had died on March 26, following "a vibrant life" and a four-month struggle with cancer.

Legacy After Bageant's death, his Australian publisher asked Bageant's literary executor, Ken Smith, to select and edit about 80,000 words of his essays. The book was published in November 2011 as Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball: The Best of Joe Bageant. That posthumous collection was available only in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa where, according to Smith, it sold reasonably well. According to Smith, "no American publisher is yet interested in a book by a redneck socialist—and that says a lot about American culture and the US book business."

Bageant's friends at The Greanville Post voted him as editor emeritus of the publication.

Works