Marie Sansone's Slow Tour

Starting with books read beginning in 2009, and I can see this is going to take some time. I'm planning on adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to my list, and maybe some of the US territories, since I haven't yet read any books set in the latter two.

Alabama - To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee.
Alaska - Unlearning to Fly, a memoir by Jennifer Brice.
Arizona - Grand Ambition, a novel by Lisa Michaels.
Arkansas - True Grit, a novel by Charles Portis.
California - Oil!, a novel by Upton Sinclair.
Colorado - Hard Truth, a mystery by Nevada Barr.
Connecticut - On, Off, a mystery by Colleen McCullough.
Delaware - The Saint of Lost Things, a novel by Christopher Castellani.
District of Columbia - The Night Gardener, a novel by George Pelecanos.
Florida - The Everglades: River of Grass, nonfiction, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas; Shadow Country, a novel by Peter Matthiessen.
Georgia - Tobacco Road, a novel by Erskine Caldwell.
Hawaii - The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai, a history by John Tayman.
Idaho - Killer View, a novel by Ridley Pearson.
Illinois - Native Son, a novel by Richard Wright.
Indiana - Into the Prairie: The Pioneers, historical romance by Rosanne Bittner.
Iowa - Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, non-fiction, by Vicki Myron.
Kansas - In Cold Blood, true crime by Truman Capote.
Kentucky - Wormwood, a mystery by Susan Wittig Albert.
Louisiana - All the King's Men, a novel by Robert Penn Warren.
Maine - Olive Kitteridge, a novel by Elizabeth Strout; and The Poacher's Son, a mystery by Paul Doiron.
Maryland - Flight Lessons, a novel by Patricia Gaffney.
Massachusetts - The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a novel by Katherine Howe.
Michigan - Winter Study, an Anna Pigeon mystery by Nevada Barr.
Minnesota - The Sorrows of an American, a novel by Siri Hustvedt.
Mississippi - The Sound and the Fury, a novel by William Faulkner.
Missouri - Stoner, a novel by John Williams.
Montana - An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal, non-fiction by Andrew Schneider and David McCumber.
Nebraska - O Pioneers!, a novel by Willa Cather.
Nevada - The Ox-Bow Incident, a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.
New Hampshire - A Separate Peace, a novel by John Knowles.
New Jersey - Independence Day, a novel by Richard Ford.
New Mexico - Blue Rodeo, a novel by Jo-Ann Mapson; Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico, non-fiction, by Stanley Crawford.
New York - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
North Carolina - The Cheer Leader, a novel by Jill McCorkle.
North Dakota - Peace Like a River, a novel by Leif Enger.
Ohio - Winesburg, Ohio, a unified collection of short stories by Sherwood Anderson.
Oklahoma - Who Killed Karen Silkwood?, nonfiction, by Howard Kohn.
Oregon - Ancient Ones, a mystery by Kirk Mitchell.
Pennsylvania - The Johnstown Flood, history, by David McCullough; and Thunder on the Mountain: A Novel of 1936, by David Poyer.
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island - Making Rounds With Oscar, nonfiction, by David Dosa, M.D..
South Carolina - The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd.
South Dakota - Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, memoir, by Kathleen Norris.
Tennessee - Provinces of Night, a novel by William Gay.
Texas - Rainwater, a novel by Sandra Brown.
Utah - American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857, history, by Sally Denton.
Vermont - Songs in Ordinary Time, a novel by Mary McGarry Morris.
Virginia - The Wettest County in the World, a novel by Matt Bondurant.
Washington - The Other, a novel by David Guterson.
Wisconsin - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a novel by David Wroblewski.
West Virginia - Rock Bottom, a novel by Erin Brockovich.
Wyoming - Broken: A Love Story, nonfiction, by Lisa Jones.



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Came across a website today with many useful lists for literature of place: http://librarybooklists.org/fiction/adult/travel.htm#geogen

Interesting resource. Thanks for the link. I've bookmarked it for future reference. I tried the first source listed, BiblioTravel, searching for New Hampshire. It returned 17 books. LT's tagmash 'New Hampshire, fiction' returned 129 books. (Hmm. I copied that list into excel and sorted it alphabetically, expecting that there would be uncombined duplicates to deduct from the total, but no. That is 129 distinct titles.) So, LT won that one hands-down!

On the list website, the USA books are towards the middle, but most of the lists are pretty short.

Funny you should mention "New Hampshire" though. I was over at a store that sells used books on Saturday with a New Hampshire list in hand, and ended up buying another New Mexico book! Guess I'll have two New Mexico books on my list.

Still reading Mayordomo, a short and poetic book. It is taking me a long time to get through it, but Stanley Crawford's descriptions of life and community along a small irrigation ditch in northern New Mexico are unique. He devotes only a few paragraphs to each of the various individuals and families who populate the (fictional) valley where the book takes place, but still manages to make you feel as though you know them personally. A good read if you are interested in rural communities and how one state's water rights system impacts social and family life. Probably not so good if you are looking for a story line. If this book were written today, it would quite possibly be a blog, albeit a very sophisticated one, about small scale farming and rural lifestyles and everyday life as a ditch manager.

Decided to read Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1819) for Halloween: "Marvellous tales of haunted brooks and haunted fields and haunted houses." The HarperCollins 1990 edition contains Arthur Rackham's illustrations from 1928, which are delightful.

Just finished reading Native Son by Richard Wright. Somehow I missed out on this experience in high school and college, so it was time to catch up. The writing, characters, and psychology in Parts 1 and 2 were awesome, but not so much in Part 3, which seemed more like an explanation of what was happening to Bigger and the other characters throughout the inquest and judicial proceedings, rather than their actual experiences. I don't think I'll ever forget Parts 1 and 2 though.

Zipped through The Secret Life of Bees, the popular novel by Sue Monk Kidd, for my South Carolina tour. Enjoyed the material on bee-keeping and honey production, the legend of Mary of the Chains, Lily's sly observations of human nature, and the characters August and May, both of whom seemed too good to be true. A good & quick read, a bit on the quirky side, shallow at times, with a sort of magical unreality.

Just finished The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos, an urban crime novel set in Washington, DC, and neighboring Prince Georges County, Maryland, which opens with the investigation of the serial murders of teenagers, whose bodies are left in community vegetable and flower gardens. Authentic characters and dialogue, written with great sensitivity to the lives of police officers, detectives, and their families; along with teenagers and young adults struggling with broken families, poverty, drugs and alcohol, gangs, poor schools, and discrimination, both racial and sexual orientation. An accurate portrayal of the gritty side of the Nation's Capitol.

I have a few of his books on my tbr pile but haven't read one yet. I keep meaing to but just don't seem to pick one up as my next read.

I usually don't read crime novels (although my next book for this tour is In Cold Blood) for Kansas, but have enjoyed a few of Pelecanos', particularly The Night Gardener and Drama City. I attended one of his author events in DC last year, and his understanding and concern for youth and young adults, urban schools, and the criminal justice system is the real deal. Good reads if you're in the frame of mind for delving into urban dysfunction.

Re-read A Separate Peace by John Knowles for my New Hampshire tour, the tale of two 16-year-old boys away at boarding school during the summer of 1942 and the following academic year, and the effects of adolescent competition and World War II upon them and several of their classmates. Gene is the introverted scholar, once aiming to be at the top of his class, while his best friend Finny, a poor student at best (all Ds), is a handsome extrovert and natural athlete. In a picque of jealousy, Gene causes Finny to fall from a high tree ("The tree was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple, beside the river"), which pretty much puts an end to Finny's athletic ambitions, his ability to join the military, and eventually, his life. Other characters are recognizable from high school days - the class leader/politician, the crew team manager, the sensitive naturalist. Over the course of the year, in one way or another, the distant war manages to mangle them all.

For all practical purposes, there are no women characters, just passing references to maids and cleaning women, the headmaster and instructors' wives, some of the boys' mothers, and a night nurse ("Miss Windbag"). Also unusual for the age group, no apparent interest in girls, dating, sex, or sexual orientation. Not sure what this means, but it doesn't seem very realistic.

Among the most enjoyable aspects of this book - and something I failed to notice when it was required high school reading - are the beautiful descriptions of nature: the four seasons, fresh and salt water streams, a bicycle camping trip to an ocean beach, snow fall, and especially the trees. The novel is set at a time before Dutch Elm Disease took hold, destroying so many American trees, and there are beautiful descriptions of elm trees; for example: "Between the buildings, elms curved so high that you ceased to remember their height until you looked above the familiar trunks and the lowest umbrellas of leaves and took in the lofty complex they held high above, branches and branches of branches, a world of branches with an infinity of leaves. They too seemed permanent and never-changing, an untouched, unreachable world high in space, like ornamental towers and spires of a great church, too high to be enjoyed, too high for anything, great and remote and never useful."

Catching up on the classics. Just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Not one of my favorites so far, but it was interesting to read about Alabama in the 1930s.

Visited Matt Bondurant's The Wettest County in the World for my Viriginia tour. The cover describes this book as "a novel based on a true story," but it struck me more of a collective memoir or very artistic social history than a novel. The book relays the brutal lives of the three Bondurant brothers (Matt Bondurant's grandfather and granduncles), beginning with the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic through the "Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy Trial" of 1935, and interweaves the journalistic investigation of the circumstances leading up to the trial by the aging journalist and novelist Sherwood Anderson. The Bondurant Brothers, who farmed and operated a gasoline station / convenience store/diner and sawmill in their legitimate affairs, made and ran moonshine through southwestern Virginia.

The book alternates back and forth between events that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, which can make it somewhat difficult to follow the plot. In that respect, the book resembles more a collection of related, but somewhat different memories of violent and/or poignant events.

There are numerous intensely violent scenes, but none are gratuitious. There are vivid descriptions of farming tobacco, slaughtering hogs, and lumberyard operations, and detailed accounts of producing white lightening. The illegal activity, violence, revenge beatings and killings, alcoholism, governmental corruption, and poverty made this locale "one of the darkest places on earth. It is a place of silence."

One of the saddest scenes, I felt, occurs when Howard Bondurant vows to straighten out his life and bring his sawmill earnings home to support his impoverished wife and child, only to squander all of his and his younger brother's pay in a drunken card game. This short passage begins with Howard fingering his grocery list, reading over the individual items and prices ("Milk, three quarts, thirty-five cents, Bread, three loaves, twenty cents," etc.), and alternates between present and past tense, reflecting the dissonance in Howard's soul: "Howard knows he will win. He stretches his broad back , his fingers locked over his head. He feels supple, clean, his mind quick. The perfect throw, the cards line up, the perfect line. He can feel it in the flashing rot of his bones."

Just finished reading Rainwater by Sandra Brown, a work of historical fiction set in a small town in Texas during the Great Depression. Ella Barron, whose husband has left her, supports herself and her autistic son, Solly, by running a boarding house. David Rainwater, a new guest and relative of the local doctor, moves in, expecting to die shortly from terminal cancer. He befriends Solly, working with him to develop certain skills, and ultimately falls in love with Ella. Meanwhile, the Federal Government's program to destroy starving surplus cattle is taking a devastating toll on the local community, as ranchers must authorize the destruction of their animals for meager compensation and are denied the opportunity to salvage the meat to feed themselves and their impoverished neighbors. The local bullies (the leader of whom once proposed marriage to Ella), who are in cahoots with the sheriff's office, terrorize the community, particularly the blacks. There is a surprise ending to the local conflict, but the outcome did not strike me as realistic.

This is an easy read, but I have to differ with the many positive reviews. The characters are essentially flat, and quite a bit of the historical and factual material reads more like background notes than an integral part of the story.

A much better presentation of the heartbreak wrought by the Dust Bowl is The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.

I read Oil! by Upton Sinclair for my California sojourn. The novel portrays southern California in the 1920s, covering the development of the oil industry, motion picture business, large-scale religious cults, labor unrest, conflicts (especially among the youth) over socialism and communism, and corruption at all levels of business and government. The book is long and the writing polemical, but it remains remarkably contemporary in its description of big swindles, government corruption, religious cults, greed, labor disputes, student activism, and class warfare. Switch out a few names and places from today's headlines, and it would be hard to tell the difference in time.

The novel bears only slight resemblance to the movie, "There Will Be Blood," which is loosely based upon "Oil!," with the book's main oilman a likeable, compassionate figure, and doting father to his idealist son and society-obessed daughter. And while the novel begins in 1912, allowing Upton Sinclair to explore America's involvement in World War I and the impacts of the Russian Revolution, the big oil strikes in California did not actually occur until 1920 and 1923.

Read Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris for my Vermont tour, although this novel could take place anywhere, except perhaps for the common use of the term "Yah" in the dialogues. The central character is a divorced mother of three, struggling to hold down the fort with a minimum wage job, who falls victim to a dangerous con man.

Although many reviewers find this book depressing (probably because it deals with poverty, alcoholism, loneliness, rage, senility, cancer, blindness, mental disabilities, murder, theft, assaults, scams, sexual harassment, etc., etc.), I actually thought the outcome was quite hopeful and the book, often downright humorous. Also, it's intriguing to remember that the story takes place in 1960, a time of relative innocence compared to today. Imagine if the author had to deal with texting and Facebook!

Read The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, a gritty, classic western set in 1885, for my Nevada book. Two cowboys just arrived in town after winter range get caught up in a mob lynching of three drifters alleged to have stolen cattle and murdered a man. I found the the opening scenes a bit slow and the dialogues on law and justice a bit tedious, but overall, but Clark's treatment of mob psychology is authentic and horrifying, as it should be.

In his afterword, Walter Prescott Webb quotes a letter from Clark in which Clark indicates that while a number of reviewers commented that the book, written in 1937 and 1938, serves as an allegory of the brutal and unscruptulous Nazi German methods, Clark in fact intended it as a parallel of "that ever-present element in any society which can always be led to act the same way, to use authoritarian methods to oppose authoritarian methods." To that extent, The Ox-Bow Incident seemed to me to parallel the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on doubtful assertions that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Just finished up American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857, by Sally Denton, a thoroughly-researched history of the slaughter in southern Utah of the Fancher-Baker wagon train. With 40 wagons, 3 or 4 "elegant carriages," some $100,000 in gold coins and other currency, 1,000 head of cattle, and more than 200 horses and mules, the Fancher wagon train was one of the wealtiest to set out West. Approximately 140 emigrants - men, women, and children - were slaughtered over five days; only 17 children under the age of eight were spared.

As Denton summarizes the facts on page 153, "It is certain that the Fancher-Baker party was lured under false pretenses and treachery by Mormons to the remote ambush site of Mountain Meadows for the purpose of annihilation and plunder; that the genocide was carried out as part of a military operation of a highly disciplined, rigidly hierarchical theocracy of a would-be nation-state; and that it was never the independent initiative or act of renegade terrorists or Indians, as some Mormon advocates have stated."

This book includes a brief introduction to the beginnings of Mormonism in Palmyra, New York, and its movement westward through Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, Utah, and the far West, as well as an extensive bibliography.

For Arizona, I read Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels, a fictionalized account of a true adventure and mystery, Glen and Bessie Hyde's attempt to run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on a homemade flat-bottomed, wooden boat. Glen, age 30, and Bessie, age 23, were newlyweds when they set out on October 20, 1928, the 10th expedition down the river, hoping to set a record for time as well as the first descent by a woman. A little more than a month later, they had vanished. Rescuers found their boat, loaded with their gear, snagged on a rock in calm wter, and traced their campsites, but their bodies were never found.

In Grand Ambition, Michaels alternates the story of the Hydes' river trip with the story, told in the first-person, of Glen's father (Reith Hyde)'s efforts to rescue Glen and Bessie. Also interwoven into the account are stories from Glen and Bessie's life (primarily Bessie's), including Bessie's youth in West Virginia, her trip west to San Francisco and Los Angeles, her divorce from her first husband in Nevada, and her marriage to Glen in southern Idaho.

Apart from the scenes involving miserable camping conditions and sheer terror, the descriptions of the Grand Canyon and life on the river seemed to me a bit flat, but overall I thought that the novel provided a credible account of two young people setting out in the 1920s on a grand adventure. The book contains a haunting black and white photograph of Glen and Bessie taken at Hermit Camp, the last time they were seen alive, and you can't help but wonder about what they were really like. I'm looking forward to reading another book on this subject, Sunk Without a Sound: The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde, written by whitewater boatman Brad Dimock and published in 2001.

Nice review of Grand Ambition. I went to thumb it, but did not find it on the work's review page. And since this book has no reviews at all, this would be a great one to post!

Thanks! I'll do that.

An extended tour of wild Florida via Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen, an 892-page retelling of the Watson legend, along with The Everglades: River of Grass, the environmental classic by Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

If you don't have an aversion to long books, then Shadow Country is well worth the time. There are many great LT reviews of this book, so I won't go into detail here, suffice to say that I greatly enjoyed its many aspects: human history (roughly the end of the Civil War through the Great Depression), the natural and environmental history of the southwestern coast of Florida, frontier outlaws, the psychological aspects (including the effects of racism, poverty, alcoholism, brutality, mass murder, mobs, the criminal justice system (including chain gangs and corruption)), and the sheer poetry of the writing.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas's book is the starting point for research and reading on the Everglades. Published in the same year as the establishment of Everglades National Park, 1947, it helped change the perception of the Everglades from worthless swamp to that of a priceless natural treasure.

For Oklahoma, I read Who Killed Karen Silkwood? by Howard Kohn, an accounting of the investigation and trial following Silkwood's mysterious 1974 automobile accident. Much of this book also takes place in Washington, DC, in the homes and offices of the lawyers, congressional staffers, and anti-nuclear activists who led the charge to vindicate Silkwood. For those unfamiliar with the 1983 movie, "Silkwood," Silkwood worked as a lab technician at the now-shuttered Kerr-McGee plutonium plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. She was active in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, warning her fellow workers of occupational health hazards and gathering documents and photographs to demonstrate negligence, wrongdoings, and crimes at the plant (including information on some 40 pounds of missing plutonium, enough to make 3 or 4 bombs). She was run off the road en route to a meeting with a New York Times reporter and union officials, and died when her car smashed into a culvert. Prior to the accident, someone had intentionally contaminated her food with plutonium, and she was otherwise threatened and harassed. There is an excellent LT review on the book at http://www.librarything.com/work/1374031/reviews.

With Halloween around the corner, I decided to visit Massachusetts via The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a novel by Katherine Howe, the story of Connie Goodwin, a 1990s Harvard graduate student in American colonial history, which alternates with the story of Deliverance Dane, one of the 1692 accused Salem witches and her descendants. When Connie moves into her grandmother's abandoned house in Marblehead to prepare it for sale, taking a little bit of a break from pressing academic demands, she discovers mysterious objects and clues relating to Deliverance and her long-lost book of magical spells and cures. The characters are a bit flat and the plot fairly predictable; but overall this book is an entertaining, easy read and pretty interesting historical review.

In Maine, with Olive Kitteridge, a novel by Elizabeth Strout, built around a collection of short stories about small-town life, all of which touch upon or are based upon Olive's life; and also, The Poacher's Son, the first in a game-warden mystery series by Paul Doiron. Maine's Olive Kitteridge reminded me a lot of Vermont's Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris, which I liked better, probably because there was one main story line, with multiple side stories. The Poacher's Son is set in the northern part of the state near the border with Canada and also along the coast. A rookie game warden, Mike Bowditch, strives to vindicate his father (an alcoholic, womanizer, game poacher, and all-around troubled man) from murder charges stemming from an incident suggestive of eco-terrorism. Doiron's treatment of the father-son relationship is complex and heart-breaking; however, his other characters fall flat, and the one romantic scene bears more resemblance to a mechanics text. Overall though, a fast, enjoyable read. I especially liked the wilderness setting and the wildlife material.

In Louisiana, catching up on the classics with All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Although a New York Times quote on the cover proclaims this book as "the definitive novel about American politics', it struck me more as a novel about lives of the individuals who either run for elected state offices or who are employed by the candidates and elected officials and how their families are affected by and in turn affect their offices, and not so much about politics per se (unless by politics, you mean dysfunctional family politics). This is a long book, and I didn't much enjoy it until I was a third the way into it. The writing is poetical throughout, and there are some annoying philosophizing passages. Mesmerizing, compelling, and heart-breaking by the end.

A quick romp through Iowa via Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by former librarian Vicki Myron. While cat Dewey Readmore Book's antics are familiar to anyone who has lived with an affable, bushy-tailed feline, this book provides a strong sense of place, northwest Iowa; snapshots of the economic forces affecting farming communities and agricultural practices; and insights into the role and operations of small-town libraries. Interwoven with vignettes of Dewey's life are frank accounts of ordinary people struggling with the consequences of alcoholism, mental illness, cancer, and physical and mental disabilities; poverty; and broken families. And this is where Dewey shines, taking a genuine interest in humans and offering companionship: "Dewey came from humble beginnings (an Iowa alley); he survived tragedy (a freezing drop box); he found his place (a small-town library). Maybe that's the answer. He found his place. His passion, his purpose, was to make that place, no matter how small and out of the way it may have seemed, a better place for everyone."

For Pennsylvania, I chose two books set in the northwestern part of the state, The Johnstown Flood, a history, by David McCullough, and Thunder on the Mountain: A Novel of 1936, by David Poyer.

The Johnstown Flood refers, of course, to the May 31, 1889 disaster, resulting from the collapse of an upstream earthen dam, that claimed the lives of over 2,200 people. Most died within a matter of minutes as a wall of water smashed into Johnstown and the smaller settlements and farms along the way, but many hundreds died an agonizingly slow death, trapped within a massive, burning debris jam. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an organization comprised mainly of wealthy Pittsburg industrialists and bankers, had acquired the old 1833 dam some years earlier, expanded its reservoir, and constructed an exclusive resort along the shoreline. The collapse is attributed to the dam's initial poor design, shoddy construction, and improper expansion, operations, and maintenance. Deforestatation throughout the area exacerbated runoff into reservoir and streams, and the construction of adjacent railways and industrial facilities had constricted the stream channels that would otherwise have been available to carry more of the floodwaters. When an unusually-severe rainstorm struck the area during the last week of May 1889, the stage was set for the dam collapse and ensuing catastrophic flood. McCullogh describes in detail the immediate, nationwide (and even international) response to the flood, including Clara Barton's efforts, aided by her newly-formed American Red Cross.

Thunder on the Mountain: A Novel of 1936 takes place in fictional Hemlock County, amid Pennsylvania's oil fields. Following a deadly explosion and fire at the family-owned Thunder Oil Company refinery, the workers decide to form a union to demand safety improvements and increased wages. When the proud, stubborn industrialist refuses to recognize the union, the workers go on strike. From then on, the outcome is fairly predictable, but the novel is fast-paced and the writing, good. Added to the mix are the well-driller hero who leads the striking workers, his young girlfriend, a tough female organizer sent by the CIO, a truly evil strikebreaker and his goons, the town political and business establishment (in turn, supportive, ambivalent, and hostile), Eleanor Roosevelt, and the workers and their families, of varying ethnicities, many of whom are impoverished and conflicted over the labor struggles. Along with the material on well-drilling and refining operations, Poyer writes vividly of boxing, deer-hunting, violence, industrial sabotage, and betrayal.

For Hawaii, I read The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai by John Tayman, a history of the establishment and operation of the Molokai lepers colony (as well as various hospital facilities on Oahu), beginning with the exile of the first patients in 1866 through 2004.

The book, which I thought was a tad long, focuses on the public health response (more often than not, barbaric and uninformed), as well as the lives of individual patients and their families, various caregivers (including Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope), an array of doctors and writers or other visitors, scoundrals, and law enforcement personnel. First the Hawaiian and then the American governments sent more than 8,000 patients to Molokai to live out the remainder of their lives. Many of these patients did not present a risk of disease transmission, and a good number of them did not even have the disease.

While leprosy is largely under control today, Tayman's book, by extension, offers important insights into the fear and stigma associated with certain diseases (such as HIV/AIDS); the psychological, social, and economic consequences of the isolation of patients; the ethics of human experimentation; and the importance of providing adequate housing, nutrition, and support services as an adjunct to medical care.

For Kentucky, I read Wormwood: A China Bayles Mystery, by Susan Wittig Albert, which interweaves a historical (1912) mystery set in the fictional Mt. Zion Shaker community with a contemporary mystery set in the replica tourist/educational Mt. Zion village. Also tossed in for good measure are several Shaker recipes; plant lists for medicinal, culinary, and tea herb gardens; passages from fictional, historical Shaker journals; and a bibliography of reference materials on the Shakers. I've enjoyed other China Bayles' mysteries, but Wormwood struck me as unpolished and clumsy, trying to be too many things at once. It does, however, provide an entertaining introduction to Shaker history and culture.

Just finished up On, Off by Colleen McCullough, a mystery set in Connecticut in 1965-1966. When laboratory workers discover mutilated human remains in a medical waste storage locker at a prestigious university's neuroscience institute, the local police launch an investigation that quickly turns into a statewide hunt for a serial rapist and killer of mixed-race adolescent females. Detective Carmine Delmonico focuses on the university's research and hospital staff, while pursuing a budding romance with the institute's no-nonsense business director. The many suspects are bizarre, if not downright evil. Their almost universal lack of any redeeming qualities is a major weakness in the story.

Seventeen more states to go!

Three mysteries in a row, and the last, Ancient Ones by Kirk Mitchell, set in north-central Oregon, along the John Day River and in the Ochoco Mountains, was by far the best. When a Basque shepherd turned fossil hunter discovers a 14,000-year-old human skelaton, controversy erupts over whether the bones, which bear marks of cannabalism, are Native American or Caucasian. Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigator Emmet Quanah Parker, with mixed Comanche and white ancestry, and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed, a reservation-born Modoc with Asian heritage, are brought in to help keep the peace, as a preeminent anthropologist seeks court permission to scientifically analyze the bones, while the local tribes wish to honor their ancestors by having the remains interred as quickly as possible. As the legal and cultural dispute heats up, a young tribal anthropologist vanishes into the night, and shortly afterwards, the fossil hunter is found brutally murdered. Parker and Turnipseed, now actively investigating the disappearance and killing, face great danger as the killer spirals out of control and the disturbed spirits of the ancient ones seem ever present. With an array of colorful characters, western settings, and a tortured romance between Parker and Turnipseed, Ancient Ones provides a good read.

For South Dakota, I chose a memoir, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris. Norris and her husband, both poets living and working in New York City, moved to Lemmon, South Dakota, in the early 1970s, to her mathernal grandparents' home after they died, to manage their farm and cattle herd. In returning to her roots, Norris also undertakes a spiritual journey, returning to her Christian faith and a deep inquiry into monasticism. There are many beautiful passages in Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, particularly with respect to the Dakotas' natural history, and keen observations of its social and cultural history. Norris writes about the poverty of many of the rural communities, and it would be interesting to learn her take on the recent oil development and economic boom in many of these isolated places.

New Jersey is my 37th state (seems like it should be more than that!), via Independence Day by Richard Ford. A fair amount of the story also takes place in Connecticut and New York, following the life of Frank Bascombe (first introduced to readers by Ford in The Sportswriter) for several days leading up to the Fourth of July, 1988. Once a sportswriter and aspiring short story writer, Bascombe has fallen into tailspin following the death of one of his three children and subsequent divorce. After travels and a lengthy affair, Bascombe returns home to Haddam, New Jersey, where he becomes a residential real estate agent, acquires two single-family dwellings which he fixes up and rents out, and invests in a rootbeer and hot dog stand. Leading up to the planned highlight of his holiday, a road trip to the Basketball and Baseball Halls of Fame with his emotionally-troubled adolescent son, are difficult homebuyer clients; delinquent tenants; a botched romantic evening with his latest girlfriend, to whom he will not commit; a much-frustrated desire to return to his former wife; and tangential connections to a couple of murders. Bascombe spends an extreme if not pathological amount of his time ruminating on his various miseries, particularly his divorce. I pretty much enjoyed the first 100 pages or so of this book, waiting for something exciting to happen, which it pretty much never did; slogged through the next couple hundred pages; and then only out of some dubious sense of obligation, continued on to the end. With its extraordinary attention to detail, Independence Day does, however, provide a strong sense of place, even if the characters are wallowing in it.

Catching up on the classics for Mississippi with The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. An intriguing tale of the neurotic Compson family and their black servants, as told by three characters on three consecutive dates in April 1928 (but not in that order) and by one in June 1910. However, given the style of writing not to mention the near incoherence of many passages, it's not a book I would recommend. Luckily there is a Wikipedia article which lays out the story in plain language.

Faulkner has that effect on a lot of people. I'm a native Mississippian, and I understand why so many of his passages are seemingly incoherent. If you visited his home in Oxford, I think you would too.

For Tennessee, I read Provinces of Night by William Gay, a book of extraordinary beauty, tenderness, good humor, brutality, love, and honor. The book is set in 1952 in a rural part of the state, with the Tennessee Valley Authority's excavation and filling of a massive reservoir and the Korean War as backdrop. E.F. Bloodsworth, an older musician and semi-recovered stroke patient, once a bootlegger with a violent and alcoholic past, is returning home after 20 years absence. His family is ashambles, with only one grandson, 17-year-old Flemming Bloodsworth, able to connect with the old man. Son Boyd sets off on a violent quest regain his wife who has run off to Detroit, Michigan, with another man. Son Warren has completely given his life over to alcoholism and womanizing, and Warren's own son, Neal, is consumed by alcohol, superficial relationships with women, thievery, and deceit. Son Brady, who keeps loud, belligerent dogs and believes that he has psychic powers, casting spells for monetary gain and his own malevolent purposes, descends from cruelty into sheer madness. Brady is determined to keep E.F. away from his long-suffering wife, claiming that senile dementia has mercifully relieved her of the painful memories of her husband; yet this does not seem entirely true, a bond of love remains. Young Flemming falls in love with the beautiful Raven Lee Halfacre, a 16-year-old whose own father has long-since abandoned her and whose mother is a prostitute and mean drunk. Adding much-needed comic relief is Junior Albright, Flemming's friend, who has his own set of misadventures to contend with. Gay's descriptions of the natural world are exquisite, poetry actually.

Well luckily I have since read William Gay's Provinces of Night, which served as a kind of antidote to The Sound and the Fury. I probably should venture down south one of these days.

I've been wanting to read Stoner by John Williams for a long time (having once read a review that described it as the most perfect novel ever written), and finally got around to doing so for my Missouri book. Although, while set in Missouri, the story probably could have unfolded in any state with an agricultural base, university town, and four seasons. The novel tells the story of William Stoner, a poor farm boy who enters the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1910 at the age of 19 to pursue an agronomy degree . After a year of introductory courses, he discovers that his passion is English literature (particularly Medieval and Renaissance Literature), and he abandons his agronomy studies and plans to return to the family farm. When World War I breaks out and his closest friends go off to become soldiers, Stoner stays behind to continue his studies and teaching, knowing that this may ultimately harm his academic career prospects. He earns his doctoral degree, eventually becomes an assistant professor, marries a mentally ill woman who brings him and later their daughter much misery, and becomes embroiled in an academic dispute and also a love affair with a mature student, both of which threaten his career and end any chance for promotion. Despites the obstacles set in his path (by himself and others), Stoner becomes a fixture at the university as a teaching professor until his retirement and death in 1956. Williams' writing is exceptional; his characters are true to their times and circumstances. This book is indeed worthy of high praise, and probably the best that I have read for the 50-states challenge.

For North Carolina, I read The Cheer Leader by Jill McCorkle, although this coming-of-age tale has little to do with the state itself. The novel spans the life of Jo Spencer, from her birth in 1957 through the end of her first year of college in 1980; and is told in three parts, in three distinct voices. In the first part, Jo reviews photographs taken over the course of her life, through her entrance at college, commenting on her family and friends and a generally happy childhood, and alluding to an unfortunate romance. Jo thrives in high school, achieving good grades and becoming captain of the cheerleading squad; she is named most-popular girl and crowned May Queen. Part two relates the story of the summer between her junior and senior year, when she meets and falls in love with a somewhat older boy, Claud "Big Red" Williams, who devotes more energy to having a good time than furthering his stated career goals as an auto mechanic. He introduces Jo to a rougher crowd, which includes one of her childhood friends turned drug addict; Red is generally manipulative and abusive. While still fit" as Jo would say, as in "survival of the fittest," Jo's persona begins to disintegrate. Part three of the novel reveals her chaotic thinking, social isolation, and anorexia. She is failing her classes, and her bizarre and hostile behavior alienates her few remaining friends. An intervention by her roommate and parents brings about psychological counseling, which appears to be helpful, although the outcome is uncertain.

The Cheer Leader provides a fair picture of growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, with an emphasis on popular culture. There are a couple oblique references to the assassination of President Kennedy, but surprisingly few other references to significant contemporary events, such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. In this respect, I thought that the novel was incomplete. Overall, however, The Cheer Leader provides a compelling portrait of mental illness in young adults.

A classic for Georgia, Erskine Caldwell's Depression-era Tobacco Road. Nathaniel Rich has an excellent review, "American Dream: 'Tobacco Road' by Erskine Caldwell," in the April 30, 2012 edition of The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/american-dreams-tobacco-road-by-erskine-caldwell.html), part of a monthly series discussing American history from 1900 through 2012 as portrayed by novelists. His description of Tobacco Road, the plight of a degenerate, starving family no longer able to coax a turnip crop from tired, wormy soil, as a "giddy, obscene joy" is spot-on.

It wouldn't seem like summer without one of Nevada Barr's national park mysteries, so I read Hard Truth, set in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. A disabled woman, confined to a wheelchair after a climbing accident, encounters two terrified, deranged long-missing children in the park, members of a polygamist sect. A third missing girl is yet to be found. Anna Pigeon, newly assigned to the park, must sort out bizarre clues, including tortured animals, weird rangers, and smuggled wolf pups. With a little more depth and less reliance on clichés, this book could have been a really good psychological thriller.

A nonfiction cat book for Rhode Island, Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat, by Dr. David Dosa, geriatrician. Oscar is one of several cats and other animals that live at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, providing comfort and care to patients, visitors, and staff alike. Oscar, in particular, is able to sense when a patient is about to die and stays with the patient throughout his or her last hours. In undertaking an investigation of Oscar's mission, Dr. Dosa gains insights into the lives of his dementia patients and their families. Some of the best material that I've read on Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of senile dementia and end-of-life care.

I've heard great things about Making Rounds with Oscar, and your review makes me want to get to it sooner. It's on my TBR list. I'm sure I'll get to it sometime.

Followed the many recommendations for Peace Like a River by Leif Enger to North Dakota. Six more states to go!

Read True Grit by Charles Portis for Arkansas. I enjoyed the book much more than the movies, its great wit, insights, and political commentary. Also enjoyed a visit to the Fort Smith National Historic Site and across the Arkansas River to Oklahoma this fall, just before reading the book. Great fun visiting the actual places where the story is set. For Ohio, I'm reading Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson's collection of short stories set in a fictional small town. Not as much fun as Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, set in a fictional small town in Maine. Only four more states to go, and pickings are slim at the nearest library.

For Maryland, I read Flight Lessons, by Patricia Gaffney, the story of a young woman, Anna, who, upon breaking up with her unfaithful partner, returns home to Baltimore to help her Aunt Rose revive a failing Italian restaurant. But there is bad blood between Anna and Rose, stemming from the time when, as a young girl with a dying mother, Anna walked in on her father and Rose making love. Anna agrees to stay on for a short while to help reinvent the business, but events and a new love interest, a wildlife photographer, conspire to keep her on at the restaurant. Despite numerous references to Maryland's Eastern Shore, this book doesn't really convey a strong sense of place. It does, however, give a good accounting of a family restaurant business and the colorful characters likely to find employment there.

Two fiction books on environmental crimes / mysteries; for West Virginia, Rock Bottom by Erin Brockovich and for Idaho, Killer View by Ridley Pearson. They were both entertaining, but no comparison to some of the nonfiction books on environmental crimes, for example, The Cyanide Canary by Joseph Hilldorfer, which also takes place in Idaho, and A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr - which would have made an outstanding selection for Massachusetts. Only one more state to go!

With The Saint of Lost Things by Christopher Castellani, a tale of Italian immigrants living in Wilmington, Delaware, in the 1950s, I wrapped up my 50-states slow tour. Many thanks to Linda Panzo for starting this group! Next, onto the territories.