Lone Patriot: The Short Career of an American Militiaman - Tapa dura

In Lone Patriot, Kramer, who covers Europe for The New Yorker, now turns to America with a portrait of the commander-in-chief of an erstwhile Patriot army called the Washington State Militia.
In 1996 Kramer made the first of what would be many trips to Whatcom County, Washington, to talk to John Pitner and some of the veterans of Alpha One, his "leadership" squad. Through their voices, Pitner's in particular, Kramer tells the story of a movement that surfaced in America in the nineties, as the millennium approached, and has continued - its resolve, if anything, strengthened by the events of the past year - into the new century. Her powerful evocations of Whatcom County could easily describe any number of rural communities in the Pacific Northwest today - a place of refuge to a strange assortment of conspiracy theorists, armed "constitutionalists," white supremacists, county secessionists, Freemen, and Christian fanatics, and to the kind of groups that survive on their discontent.

Mark Strand wrote of Jane Kramer’s book Europeans that it was “so effortless in its dispensations, so intelligent, so well written, that as journalism it’s in a class by itself.” In Lone Patriot, Kramer, who covers Europe for The New Yorker, now turns to America with an enthralling portrait of the commander-in-chief of an erstwhile Patriot army called the Washington State Militia.

In 1996 Kramer made the first of what would be many trips to Whatcom County, Washington, to talk to John Pitner and some of the veterans of Alpha One, his “leadership” squad. Through their voices, Pitner’s in particular, Kramer tells the story of a movement that surfaced in America in the nineties, as the millennium approached, and has continued―its resolve, if anything, strengthened by the events of the past year―into the new century. Her powerful evocations of Whatcom County could easily describe any number of rural communities in the Pacific Northwest today―a place of refuge to a strange assortment of conspiracy theorists, armed “constitutionalists,” white supremacists, county secessionists, Freemen, and Christian fanatics, and to the kind of groups that survive on their discontent.

Kramer has been described as a writer who combines the art of a novelist and the eye of a social historian. Lone Patriot, with its wayward characters and their “Patriot” obsessions, is a timely and compelling narrative from one of America’s most important writers.