Welcome to Litsy!

Two friends--a Democrat and a Republican--set out across America to better understand each other, and the country they love In the year before Donald Trump was elected president, Jordan Blashek, a Republican Marine, and Chris Haugh, a Democrat and son of a single mother from Berkeley, CA, formed an unlikely friendship. Jordan was fresh off his service in the Marines and feeling a bit out of place at Yale Law School. Chris was yearning for a sense of mission after leaving Washington DC. Over the months, Jordan and Chris's friendship blossomed not in spite of, but because of, their political differences. So they decided to hit the road in search of reasons to strengthen their bond in an era of strife and partisanship. What follows is a three-year adventure story, which will take readers to 44 states and along 20,000 miles of road to find out exactly where the American experiment stands at the close of the second decade of the 21st Century. In their search, Jordan and Chris go from a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona and the tear gas soaked streets outside, to the Mexican highways running between Tijuana and Juarez, to the decks of a lobster trawler off the coast of Portland, Maine, to the jazz clubs just outside the French Quarter of New Orleans, to the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma where former addicts painstakingly put their lives back together, to a state prison just outside Detroit where inmates grapple with their imminent return to society. Union is the unforgettable story of these trips, and the way they changed the lives of the men who embarked on them. We ride along with Jordan and Chris for the whole journey, listening in on front seat arguments and their conversations with Americans from coast-to-coast. We also peer outside the car to understand the burning topics on America's mind that Jordan and Chris want to understand better, including immigration, mass incarceration, and the military-civilian divide-to name just three. Union is a road narrative, a civics lesson, and an unforgettable window into one epic friendship. And by the time Jordan and Chris kill the engine for the last time, it will give readers an answer to one of the most pressing questions of our time: How far apart are we really?