This book is a pleasure to read …. Although many of the selections are excerpts from longer works, for the most part they feel satisfyingly self-contained …. The volume as a whole …. is thoughtfully arranged …. These writers take unflinching looks at racism, the Vietnam War, rural poverty, environmental degradation, and other unflattering episodes in the state’’s history. The book is nevertheless filled with humor …. [I]t’s certain that readers will never look at a barbed-wire fence or a buffalo chip the same way again.