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United States of Rejection: A Story of Love, Hate, and Hope
Not yet published
Expected 1 May 26An exploration of real-life, relatable rejections through reporting and lively storytelling
This is a love-hate story about personal and political relationships in the United States, told through the intimate stories of both the rejectors and the rejected: lovers, families, neighbors, and a nation and its people. Although we’re taught not to care about others’ opinions, rejection always hurts, and it hurts some people a lot more than others. To prove it, this book marshals contemporary neuroscience, the Founding Fathers’ rejection advice, and four centuries of personal narratives, many of them hilarious, many more heartbreaking. These rejection and acceptance stories span loving and disastrous American first encounters, soldiers and dancers rejected on front lines and chorus lines, playground bullies invoked before the Senate, and generations of lovers and patriots battling or swiping right to defend their loved ones and their country.
Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more evil, than of good.” But rejection is often unjust, often deserved, and unusually complicated, depending on who’s rejecting whom and why.
In laboratories, diaries, self-help manuals, auditions, lawsuits, and wars, we find models for “getting past” rejections, not just through personal resilience, but also through creating accountability and justice. United States of Rejection begins with heartbreak and ends with hope: an urgent self-improvement program for changing our relationships and the future of our messy nation.
This is a love-hate story about personal and political relationships in the United States, told through the intimate stories of both the rejectors and the rejected: lovers, families, neighbors, and a nation and its people. Although we’re taught not to care about others’ opinions, rejection always hurts, and it hurts some people a lot more than others. To prove it, this book marshals contemporary neuroscience, the Founding Fathers’ rejection advice, and four centuries of personal narratives, many of them hilarious, many more heartbreaking. These rejection and acceptance stories span loving and disastrous American first encounters, soldiers and dancers rejected on front lines and chorus lines, playground bullies invoked before the Senate, and generations of lovers and patriots battling or swiping right to defend their loved ones and their country.
Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more evil, than of good.” But rejection is often unjust, often deserved, and unusually complicated, depending on who’s rejecting whom and why.
In laboratories, diaries, self-help manuals, auditions, lawsuits, and wars, we find models for “getting past” rejections, not just through personal resilience, but also through creating accountability and justice. United States of Rejection begins with heartbreak and ends with hope: an urgent self-improvement program for changing our relationships and the future of our messy nation.
352 pages, Paperback
Expected publication May 1, 2026
9 people want to read
About the author
Alison Kinney
3 books36 followersAlison Kinney is the author of the upcoming nonfiction book
UNITED STATES OF REJECTION: A STORY OF LOVE, HATE, AND HOPE
(UGA Press, May 2026), as well as
AVIDLY READS OPERA
and
HOOD
.
For more information and tour dates, see alisonkinney.com.
“Alison Kinney’s United States of Rejection is a brilliant, substantial work of social criticism. With disarming wit, she offers insight on the many ways that American culture and history have been shaped by messy feelings. The book is a fascinating take on the complex motivations that can drive the political discourse. It gave me a new perspective and feeling of genuine hope.” – Wendy S. Walters, author of MULTIPLY/DIVIDE and TROY, MICHIGAN
Alison's essays and articles on cultural history, the arts, and social justice can be found online at Paris Review Daily, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's, Lapham's Quarterly, L.A. Review of Books, New Republic, The Believer, and other publications. Five of her essays have been named Notable Essays in The Best American Essays, from 2016 through 2020. She teaches nonfiction writing at Eugene Lang College, The New School.
For more information and tour dates, see alisonkinney.com.
“Alison Kinney’s United States of Rejection is a brilliant, substantial work of social criticism. With disarming wit, she offers insight on the many ways that American culture and history have been shaped by messy feelings. The book is a fascinating take on the complex motivations that can drive the political discourse. It gave me a new perspective and feeling of genuine hope.” – Wendy S. Walters, author of MULTIPLY/DIVIDE and TROY, MICHIGAN
Alison's essays and articles on cultural history, the arts, and social justice can be found online at Paris Review Daily, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's, Lapham's Quarterly, L.A. Review of Books, New Republic, The Believer, and other publications. Five of her essays have been named Notable Essays in The Best American Essays, from 2016 through 2020. She teaches nonfiction writing at Eugene Lang College, The New School.
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