or the first twenty years of her life, all Nancy French knew of the world was Paris--Paris, Tennessee, that is. When the former homecoming queen trades in cow-tipping, her bouffant, and the Catfish Capital of the World for a new life up north, she's in for a real education.

Things get lost in translation when she enrolls in her first women's studies/philosophy class at New York University ("Women's Studies is the study of why men deserve to be eliminated from the planet just as soon as babies can be grown in Petri dishes and pickle jars come with easy-open lids"), gives birth in an Ithaca hospital that bans epidurals and pacifiers, faces down recycling police, and almost gets arrested for leaving a stroller at the Liberty Bell. [Read more...]

Praise for Red State of Mind

"If the 'Star Spangled Banner' gives you chill bumps, Nancy French is your perfect tour guide across this great land ."

— Mary Matalin, former assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney