State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America - Hardcover

Matt Weiland; Sean Wilsey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061470902 ISBN 13: 9780061470905

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2008

Synopsis

Editors Sean Wilsey and Matt Weiland have turned to 50 of the finest, funniest, and foremost writers in America to create a state by state celebration of their country: Jonathan Franzen on New York, Louise Erdrich on North Dakota, Dave Eggers on Illinois, Ann Patchett on Tennessee, Jhumpa Lahiri on Rhode Island-the list goes on. At turns poignant and hysterical, and uniformly insightful, these fifty writers capture the beauty, the kitsch, the unexpected and the quintessential things that make America. There is something and someone in "State by State" for everyone. With a roster of bestsellers and award winners, from Ann Patchett to Rick Moody to Myla Goldberg, Wilsey and Weiland have culled the best of the best from the literary creme de la creme to write on something all Americans are interested in: our country.

About this title

Review:

...a bold and ambitious response by editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey....a mix of memoir that holds you and history you didn't know, an open and self-reflective attitude to race and fantastically good writing...If the new American administration is serious about its cultural diplomacy and it use of soft power, it might want to let the rest of the world in on what America looks like from the inside. From the pages of this book it looks funnier, quirkier, smarter, more fragile but more thoughtful and generous-hearted than most of the world has imagined it recently. The state department could do a lot worse than issue every embassy with a box or two of State to State. --David Goldblatt, The Independent, Dec 08

It was a good idea of the editors of this volume to embark on a systematic treatment of America at a moment when we are asked to think of the country again as a collection of harmonious but very different voices. Fifty writers, of different levels of distinction some very distinguished indeed have been asked to write about each of the 50 states. Some of them write about their home states, others about states which mean something special to them, one or two merely about a visit to a particular state. There are some exceptionally distinguished writers here among them Dave Eggers, Jayne Anne Phillips, Louise Erdrich, Ann Patchett, Rick Moody, Jonathan Franzen and the wonderful Joshua Ferris, elbowing Carl Hiaasen s reputation out of the way with a brilliant piece on Florida. The book is adorned, too, with some charming statistics, telling you that Tennessee has seven separate State Songs, West Virginia has a toothlessness rate of 40.5 per cent, Kentucky has 2.4 roller-coasters per million head of population, and the difference between the highest and lowest oil consumption per capita is a factor of some 385 per cent, between Alaska and Connecticut. All very fascinating. I might even go there one of these days. --Philip Hensher, The Spectator, Nov 08

'Bold and ambitious ... the tone and technique of this collection are brilliantly varied ... If the new American administration is serious about its cultural diplomacy and its use of soft power, it might want to let the rest of the world in on what America looks like from the inside. From the pages of this book it looks funnier, quirkier, smarter, more fragile but more thoughtful and generous-hearted than most of the world has imagined it until recently.' --The Independent - 12th December 2008

From the Back Cover:

From the bestselling editors of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup comes an American road trip in book form: original writing on all 50 states by 50 of our finest novelists, journalists, and essayists

Inspired by the example of the legendary WPA American Guide series of the 1930s and '40s, now 50 of our foremost writers have produced original pieces of reportage and memoir that capture the 50 states in our time, creating a fresh portrait of America as it lives and breathes today.

At turns poignant and funny, and always insightful, these 50 writers tell us something lasting and revealing about each state through personal memory or contemporary reporting that captures the essential qualities that make each state its own. With an array of revealing facts and figures comparing the 50 states in a range of surprising measures (toothlessness, military enlistment, suicide), State by State is more than an anthology: It is a classic American road movie in book form.

Featuring original writing on all fifty states

Alabama by George Packer
Alaska by Paul Greenberg
Arizona by Lydia Millet
Arkansas by Kevin Brockmeier
California by William T. Vollmann
Colorado by Benjamin Kunkel
Connecticut by Rick Moody
Delaware by Craig Taylor
Florida by Joshua Ferris
Georgia by Ha Jin
Hawaii by Tara Bray Smith
Idaho by Anthony Doerr
Illinois by Dave Eggers
Indiana by Susan Choi
Iowa by Dagoberto Gilb
Kansas by Jim Lewis
Kentucky by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Louisiana by Joshua Clark
Maine by Heidi Julavits
Maryland by Myla Goldberg
Massachusetts by John Hodgman
Michigan by Mohammed Naseehu Ali
Minnesota by Philip Connors
Mississippi by Barry Hannah
Missouri by Jacki Lyden
Montana by Sarah Vowell
Nebraska by Alexander Payne
Nevada by Charles Bock
New Hampshire by Will Blythe
New Jersey by Anthony Bourdain
New Mexico by Ellery Washington
New York by Jonathan Franzen
North Carolina by Randall Kenan
North Dakota by Louise Erdrich
Ohio by Susan Orlean
Oklahoma by S.E. Hinton
Oregon by Joe Sacco
Pennsylvania by Andrea Lee
Rhode Island by Jhumpa Lahiri
South Carolina by Jack Hitt
South Dakota by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
Tennessee by Ann Patchett
Texas by Cristina Henríquez
Utah by David Rakoff
Vermont by Alison Bechdel
Virginia by Tony Horwitz
Washington by Carrie Brownstein
West Virginia by Jayne Anne Phillips
Wisconsin by Daphne Beal
Wyoming by Alexandra Fuller

and an afterword on Washington, D.C.: A Conversation with Edward P. Jones

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0061470902
• ISBN 13: 9780061470905
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 608