Evasion (book)

Evasion (book)

Evasion is a book that spun off from a zine of the same name. It was published by CrimethInc. in 2003. The book comprises 108 pages of slightly revised text from the original zine (95% of which is retained) along with 162 pages of new material. The author is not named in the book, but is referred to elsewhere as "Mack", "the Evasion Kid", or "Mack Evasion." He later wrote a column in the zine heartattaCk .

Evasion is a first person account of the author's travels and means of survival. He survives by dumpster diving, shoplifting, return fraud, and various other "scams" he employs to get whatever money he needs. He travels by hitchhiking and train hopping, and relates adventures he has had such as gate crashing at music venues, attending hardcore punk concerts, and being employed as a professional shoplifter by a middle-class family, among other things.

Evasion expresses very few specific political statements, but the author frequently makes reference to his vegan and straight-edge lifestyle. The author expresses situationist and anti-work leanings, leaving some to label him a lifestylist. Being published by an anarchist collective and widely read and reviewed by anarchists, many considered Evasion to be an unquestionably anarchist work, even though the author never labeled himself as such in the book. However, in his HeartattaCk column he elaborated on his political views in more detail, and responded to criticisms of Evasion:

My friends and I had long considered ourselves anarchists, if you forced us to put a name on it and temporally concern ourselves with the narrow issue of the political arrangement of one species on earth - Mack Evasion, HeartattaCk #45.