A Place Of Sense: Essays in Search of the Midwest (Bur Oak Book)

Essays describe life in small towns, farming communities, and suburbs in states from Ohio to North Dakota. Under The Sign Of Wonder Bread And Belmont Caskets / Michael J. Rosen -- The Flatness / Michael Martone -- A Writer's Sense Of Place / Louise Erdrich -- The Way The Country Lies / Douglas Bauer -- American Gothic / David Hamilton -- If You Can Talk To A Guy / Jane Staw And Mary Swander -- Grandma's Backbone, Dougie's Ankles / Gary Comstock -- Letting Go : The Virtue Of Vacant Ground / Janet Kauffman. Edited By Michael Martone ; Photographs By David Plowden. Collected here are essays by Louise Erdrich, Michael Rosen, Gary Comstock, Mary Swander and Jane Staw, David Hamilton, Janet Kauffman, Douglas Bauer, and Michael Martone. Sixteen black-and-white photographs by David Plowden illustrate the sweeping territory covered in the essays. Together they bring a new understanding of the moods, emotions, people, and places that form the Midwest, proving it to be as complex and unordinarily beautiful as it is modest.