Seventy-five years ago FDR put a Hall of Fame’s worth of writers to work chronicling every nook and cranny of America in the famous WPA State and City Guides. Just last year, the idea was revived by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey in a book they commissioned entitled State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, published by Ecco. It featured an original essay on every state in the Union (plus DC) by a new generation of writers, including Dave Eggers on Illinois, Jhumpa Lahiri on Rhode Island, Ann Patchett on Tennessee, Jonathan Franzen on New York, William T. Vollmann on California, and many more.
This modern take on the WPA Guides was not meant to be exhaustive but rather highly personal, almost impressionistic; an attempt to reveal something of the essence of each state today. For instance, the essay on Missouri by NPR’s Jacki Lyden focused on Bosnian immigrants bringing parts of St. Louis back to life, while the award-winning novelist Joshua Ferris’s moving piece on Florida was rooted in the sand of Key West. Thanks in no small part to the enthusiasm of independent booksellers (including a documentary produced by Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon), State by State was a great success throughout the country.
Inspired by State by State’s example, and in tribute to the extraordinary local knowledge of booksellers and librarians, we commissioned a volume devoted to the Great Lakes states written by the independent booksellers and librarians themselves. These are professionals who deal with other writers’ words every day of their working life, but who don’t often get a chance to see their own words on paper, in a bound book, for sale in a bookstore. Some have had their work published in magazines or journals; for others, this is their debut. But all of them once lived, or still live, in the Great Lakes region and know its particularities and idiosyncrasies intimately.
Herein you will find essays on the great states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, competitors in Big Ten football during the fall but comrades during the long winters, eager vacationers in the summer and hard workers year round. And except for a hundred mile stretch on the eastern border of Ohio and a small edge of Wisconsin, these five states are completely surrounded by water—by two of our great rivers, the Ohio and Mississippi, and of course, the Great Lakes. These five states float like a unique slice of American geography and culture, but they are firmly attached to the tradition and history of America.
We hope you enjoy these snapshots, road trips, and memories. There is love and ambivalence here, regret and happiness … but mostly happiness.
One final note: Since I do always take the geography questions in Trivial Pursuit, I do know that Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New York also touch on the Great Lakes! Look for more regional volumes written by booksellers and librarians from around the country next year; this is the first of many.
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