As busy as she is, Dana Perino occasionally finds time to watch a reality show — and to think of a premise for one.
“I grew up in Colorado and Wyoming. I have friends on both coasts and in the middle of the country, and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if you could take some of my friends and producers here in New York and put them in Wyoming, and take my Wyoming friends and family and put them in New York and give them three months and say good luck,” she said.
“I believe they would come away from it saying, ‘Oh my gosh, people are people, no matter where you are.’ Because I do think that is the true experience of most Americans all throughout the country. That’s not necessarily true online. But it is true when you meet people face-to face.”
Meet the Fox News personality advocating for not red or blue, but purple America: Perino, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, a longtime mentor of young women, and co-host of one of the most popular shows on cable news, “The Five‚” as well as co-anchor of “America’s Newsroom.”
As of this week, you can add “fiction writer” to her resume, with the publication of “Purple State,” her first novel.
“Purple State” grew out of Perino’s vision for that cross-cultural reality show, as well as another idea she had: What if the Democratic Party decided to try to flip a purple state by convincing a large number of Democrats, especially women, to move there? What might transpire as the “blue” newcomers interacted with the “red” residents and found they weren’t the people they’d disliked from afar?
Officially, “Purple State” falls in the genre of rom-com, or romantic comedy, but Perino has greater ambition for the book than entertainment.
“Like many others, I am concerned about perceptions versus reality regarding polarization in the country. Not just politically, but also culturally and geographically,” she told me.
By that she means, perhaps Americans are not as polarized as we’re told we are. Put us in a room together — or in a novel — and we can get along just fine. It’s the constant negative drumbeat, fueled by what’s been called “the rage economy,” that gives some people the sense that we’re on the verge of civil war.
With “Purple State,” Perino says “no thanks” to that mindset, and she hopes her readers will as well.
What is ‘Purple State’ about?
The novel is set in Wisconsin, which Perino calls “the ultimate purple state” because it famously swings from red to blue in presidential cycles.
“No other state’s presidential election results have ever been as closely divided as many times in as short a period as Wisconsin’s were from 2000 through 2020, with four of six races decided by less than one percentage point each,” Larry Sandler wrote for Milwaukee magazine in 2024, right before President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris, with 49.6% of the vote to Harris’s 48.7%.
Before doing research for the book, Perino knew little about the state, other than its political reputation, even though she had friends who lived there, including former House Speaker Paul Ryan and former GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher.
“Everyone I’ve ever known from Wisconsin, I love,” she said.
So after the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Perino hired a young woman to show her around the state for two days. When they visited Cedarburg, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, she knew she had found the town where she would send three young women from New York in her novel. (Cedarburg becomes Cedar Falls in “Purple State.”)
The illustration on the cover of the book foreshadows the dichotomy: a sleek blonde in sunglasses is in the foreground, with a ball cap-wearing man with a pickup truck and a dog behind her. (With Perino, whose Hungarian vizslas are as famous as she is, of course there has to be a dog.)
Dot, the protagonist, is a hotshot PR executive in New York who leaves her comfort zone when she temporarily moves to Cedar Falls, accompanied by her equally urban-sophisticate friends Mary and Harper.
In Cedar Falls, they find that stereotypes don’t always hold water, especially when it comes to men.
Perino, the author of four nonfiction books, was encouraged to try her hand at fiction by her friend Andrew Graff, an award-winning author who teaches creative writing at Wittenberg University in Ohio. She began writing on weekends in June of 2024.
“I would take a big Yeti filled with hot green tea and I’d tell Peter ‘see you later,’ and I’d be upstairs writing from about 11 to 3:30 or 4, on Saturdays and Sundays.” (Peter McMahon is Perino’s husband.)
In making the case for a functionally purple America, Perino points out that more people identify as independents than Republican or Democrat.
According to Gallup, “A record-high 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents in 2025, surpassing the 43% measured in 2014, 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, equal shares of U.S. adults — 27% each — identified as either Democrats or Republicans.”
“That should tell both parties something,” Perino said. “But I also think that for the most part, people are just busy trying to live their lives. I don’t think government should be this involved in our lives, and I also don’t think you should have to worry about your government this much.”
Gerrymandering and the primary system are part of the problem, she said, noting that there are fewer than 20 competitive congressional districts. “You either have hard left or hard right, and so the people in the purple are left to just throw up their hands about politics; some of my friends have just stopped looking at news altogether. They may get a little bit here or there on their phones, but they’ve sort of had it. Although it’s funny that they say that because they still watch ‘America’s Newsroom’ and ‘The Five’ because they’re my friends.”
Wearing her politics lightly
“Purple State” has a subplot about a family farm that is under pressure be sold to a foreign conglomerate. That’s a story that resonates with Perino, whose extended family still raises cattle and quarter horses in the Mountain West.
But the novel’s overall message is that you can love people who aren’t exactly like you.
Perino, who is 53, has said that she “wears my politics lightly,” a surprising thing for someone who has made a career either working in politics or talking about politics. In fact, she has a podcast called “Perino on Politics.”
“It’s certainly what I do for a living, it’s what I talk about,” she told me. “But it’s not who I am.”
She explained: “Remember back in the day when you didn’t ask about politics? That’s how I was raised. And also, I just try to be open and nonjudgmental toward everybody.
“When I was press secretary, I could speak on behalf of President Bush or the nation without ever giving my personal opinion about anything. That changed when I started on ‘The Five’ 15 years ago this July, and it took me a while to gain the confidence to do that.” (She credits her Fox colleague Greg Gutfeld for helping her learn to speak her mind, saying, “He wasn’t afraid of being fired. I was terrified.”)
“But also, I think with every passing month, as I’ve gotten older, I’m grateful for my life, I love humans and I just cringe at talking about politics in a way that is going to hurt somebody else’s feelings. I never want to do that. ... I’m not blind or naive when it comes to the polarization in the country. It’s actually one of the reasons I wrote the book.”
She continues: “I’m increasingly concerned, especially about younger people who say they would never date someone who disagrees with them politically. I think they’re cutting off the possibilities for love and fulfillment because of politics, which is absurd.”
Last year, a NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that most respondents under the age of 45 said it’s important that their romantic partner shares their political views. Among respondents aged 18 to 29, 60% said this is important; in contrast, only 30% of respondents 60 or older said political compatibility is important in a mate.
A message for young women
Perino dedicated the book to her younger sister who lives in Colorado and is a person who is “not public facing in any way.” “She is so proud of me. She read every single draft of this book,” Perino said. “Dot Clark’s younger sister in the book is a lot like my sister, except for my sister can’t ski.”
America’s young women have been the source of much analysis over the past few years, from their affection for tattoos, to their declining church attendance, to the decline in the share who say they want to get married and have children.
But Perino says that’s not what she’s encountering in her work and in Minute Mentoring, which she co-founded.
“I’m surrounded by young women who have strong desires to find somebody,” she told me. “Maybe not wanting to have children in their 20s, but there’s a strong desire there. When I do mentoring hours, almost every single one of them, at the end of the session, want to switch gears and talk about their love life. ... I encounter that a lot. And I think it’s because I’m very open about meeting my husband and my marriage, and my biggest and most important piece of advice, which is the ultimate lesson in ‘Purple State,’ is ‘choosing to be loved is not a career-limiting decision.’”
“And I don’t know if young women (who say they don’t want to get married or have children) will read ‘Purple State’ and be touched by it,” she said. “But I think there are plenty who are trying to plan their lives out in a way that is going to end up disappointing them, sort of like Dot, Harper and Mary ... they think their life should be in different place than where they are at 25. And that’s not uncommon. That happens to all women in the quarter-life time frame.”
In “Purple State,” the protagonist decides to take a chance that changes everything.
“The other thing I advise people,” Perino said, “if you’re looking for what comes next is, trust that it’s going to happen, and have your eyes and ears open at all times. And act on it. I wrote a book called ‘Everything Will Be Okay’ and that’s true, but you also have to be willing to help make that happen.”
And also, she advises young women to read fiction. That’s one way Perino dissociates from politics. “I need, for my own well-being, to read fiction,” she said.
“Reading fiction is not selfish. It’s a way to feed your soul and to work out emotions and find some joy. Take the time to find a good book, and enjoy it.”