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.

Midwesterner Michael Martone is the author of three collections of stories, Alive and Dead in Indiana, Safety Patrol, and Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List. He is associate professor of English at Syracuse University.