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"From the nineteenth century German immigrants who settled on a small Midwestern farm, to the proud and upright aunts and uncles with whom Sandlin spent the summers of his youth, a whole history of quiet ambition and stoic pride—of successes, failures, and above all endurance—leaps off the page in a sweeping American family epic. Touching on The Great Depression, WWII, and the American immigrant experience, The Distancers is a beautiful and stark...
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When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine -- and a dashing sommelier -- he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter -- starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes...
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"What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts' The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest...
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"From the New York Times bestselling author of Le Divorce, a dazzling meditation on the mysteries of the "wispy but material" family ghosts who shape us. Growing up in the small river town of Moline, Illinois, Diane Johnson always dreamed of floating down the Mississippi and off to see the world. Years later, at home in France, a French friend teases her: 'Indifference to history--that's why you Americans seem so naive and don't really know where...
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In a moving and bittersweet story, M.J. Andersen chronicles her childhood and adolescence in South Dakota, her departure to forge her own life, and her persistent longing for the landscape she left behind. Her hometown, given the fictional name of Plainville, is so quiet that one local family regularly parks by the tracks to watch the train pass through. Yet small-town life and, especially, the prairie prove to be fertile ground for Andersen's imagination....
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In this volume, a stable of fresh stories by award-winning writer Will Weaver (Full Service and Barns of Minnesota), are complemented by a hand-picked selection of favorites from his original collection, A Gravestone Made of Wheat, to offer a fresh, vivid portrait of the changing midwestern landscape. New highlights include "Blaze of Glory," an enchanting tale of an RV road trip and a senior couple's "last time"; "The Trapper," the story of a hard...
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"In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she's traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we've left."--back cover.
18) The good life
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In the Midwest, where football is the most important thing next to family, Jason doesn't fit in because he doesn't care about the game, and instead withdraws into the world of classic movies.