If you find yourself killing time at your local newsstand in the near future, take a gander at the April issue of Reason, specifically the article on page 64 called “The Hippie and the Redneck Can Be Friends.” It contains some kind words about your favorite author. Or you can just read the relevant excerpt below (sadly, it’s not available online for free):

“Meanwhile, other hands kept turning out those exploitation movies. In the new book Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema (McFarland), Scott Von Doviak gives us an entertaining and illuminating look at their world. ‘While blaxploitation pictures ruled the urban grindhouses, providing heroes and myths for those trapped in the inner cities,’ he writes, ‘hick flicks dominated the drive-in circuit, bringing their own set of archetypal figures to flyover country.’ Von Doviak, who covers film for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, has cast a wide net; he ends up discussing everything from early B movies to 21st-century fare, from backwoods creature features to art-house documentaries. But the heart of his book is the 1970s, and the soul is movies about outlaws driving cars or trucks, ideally with a load of illicit spirits.

“I can’t endorse every opinion Von Doviak espouses. Notably, he fails to appreciate the peculiar charms of Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy, surely the only film that is simultaneously a Christian allegory, a vaguely anarchist political fable, and a feature-length adaptation of a novelty song about CB radios. (It isn’t a good movie, but it’s much better than any picture starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw has a right to be.) But Von Doviak is a witty and astute student of these films, entertainments that could simultaneously reflect the values of both the American counterculture and its alleged opposite.”

Or, if you’re assembling the pull-quote:

“Entertaining and illuminating! Witty and astute!”