State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: little sorrel, state song, New York, United States, New Hampshire (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Without leaving home or spending a cent on gas, readers of this book can enjoy a scenic view of the entire U.S. that is as familiar as it is disorienting. Weiland, deputy editor of the Paris Review, and Wilsey, editor-at-large for McSweeney's, have gathered a group of 50 disparate voices to explore not just their experience in America, but the way each state was presented in the American Guide series of the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s, in which the Works Project Administration (WPA), as part of F.D.R's New Deal, put more than 6000 American writers to work creating a portrait of this country. The editors wanted to make a book inspired by the ideals behind the WPA Guides but they also wanted something more personal, more eccentric, and more partial. Obvious heavy-hitters—Dave Eggars (Illinois), Rick Moody (Connecticut), Jhumpa Lahiri (Rhode Island), Barry Hannah (Mississippi), William T. Vollmann (California)—are included, as well as some wonderful surprises. Alison Bechdel's illustrated story about her life after moving to Vermont brilliantly combines personal history with historical fact, as does Charles Bock's essay on growing up and working in his parent's Las Vegas pawnshop. Mohammed Naseehu Ali's tale of life in Michigan, after moving there from Ghana as a teen, illuminates what the unconditionally generous Michigan nature shares with the traditions of his own Hausa-Islamic culture. And Franzen's imaginary interview with the state of New York is perhaps the high point among this collection of beguiling summations of something all the writers share: a love-hate relationship with how their chosen state has changed and evolved during the course of their lives. (Sept.)
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Review

"This eclectic collection of essays describing the ordinary people and places within our 50 states is as essential as the Rand McNally atlas. Alternately brash and bashful...each literary foray in State by State is well worth the trip. Grade: A." (Entertainment Weekly )

"Self-consciously modeled after state guides sponsored by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s, this ambitious effort features a terrific roster of writers." (Kirkus Reviews )

"An enjoyable journey: 50 essays, cartoons and mini-plays, plus an afterward about Washington, DC and a fascinating appendix.all in all, it makes one yearn for a driver's license and a stretch of open highway." (New York Post )

"Ideal nightstand reading and a welcome reminder of the pluribus behind the unum." (Salon.com )

"This fascinating collection, inspired by guides in the 1930s and 1940s, includes original essays on each of the states by some of the country's finest (mostly younger) writers." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer )

"Fascinating." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer )

"Odds are, reading STATE BY STATE, that you'll fall for every state a little, even if they remain tremendously hard to explain." (Los Angeles Times )

"[State by State] is a funny, moving, rousing collection, greater than the sum of its excellent parts, a convention of literary superdelegates, each one boisterously nominating his or her piece of the Republic." (New York Times Book Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Printing edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061470902
• ISBN-13: 978-0061470905
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,264 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If NPR wrote a book..., October 1, 2008

By	C. R. Swanson "wilybadger.wordpress.com" (Phoenix) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

This is not a bad book by any means. It's got some decent photos, and some of the essays I've read (not all. I've only focused on the states I've lived in or visited for any length of time, plus Michigan), are very well written.

Here's the problem, though. When I read them, I keep "hearing" them in what I can only describe as an "NPR voice". Now I like NPR, and I'm as liberal as liberal gets, but frankly some of these essays annoy me. They seem to only want to focus on the negatives (California), come off as somewhat smug (Arizona), or focus on what I can best describe as "quaint native culture" (Alaska).

There's this vaguely irritating trend where the authors always seem to feel the need to remind us that Europeans weren't here first. There also seems to be a constant lament about how horrible it is that we've lost touch with nature and destroyed the natural world, etc, etc. None of this is exactly bad, per se, but it's brought up constantly and gets old.

As for the presentation... the book feels like a textbook, and I don't mean that in some abstract way. I mean that when you touch the non-dust-cover-having cover, it physically feels like a textbook. More to the point, it seems almost like it's trying to mimic the look and feel of a book from the 1950's or 1960's. This isn't bad, but it is rather odd.

Overall this book is not what I'd expected or hoped for. It's a perfectly ok book in some ways, but gets annoying after a while. Probably best read in small doses, if at all. I will say the demographic information at the end of the book is quite spiffy, and what keeps this from being two stars.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But where I come from...., September 27, 2008

By	sb-lynn (Santa Barbara, California United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

Editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey commissioned a group of (very) different writers to write an essay on each of the 50 states. Some of these writers are well-known award winners, others are less familiar. They are reporters, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers and even a musician. Some are natives or long time residents of their states, and others are more recent transplants. Some were even sent to the state just to get a sense of the place from a writer's eyes. .

This book is a follow-up of sorts, to the WPA Federal Writers Project of the 1930's, which similarly hired a group of writers to write state guides, "to describe American to Americans." Each guide was more than 500 pages.

We all know a lot has happened since the 1930's, and our country has become a lot more homogenized. We all listen to the same music on our XM radios, and we can shop at the same big box stores, or snack at the same fast food restaurants.

But each state is still unique, and these essays attempt to show us how. Some of the writers talk about the history, others the landscape, and others describe the personalities of people who inhabit particular places. Some talk about the myths and the positive things that would appeal to the local Chamber of Commerce, and others are more gloomy and talk about the problems. And many of these essays contain all of these things.

This is a strange book to review, because each story is so different, both in style (different writers) and obviously in substance. For that reason, readers will enjoy reading some of these essays, and not care for others. But this is a unique and timely book, and a wonderful way to "see" each state. As Matt Weiland told the writers:

"To everyone we said: Tell us a story about your state, the more personal the better, something that captures the essence of the place. Not the kind of story one hears in a musty lecture hall or one reads in the dusty pages of an encyclopedia. The kind of story the enlisted soldier tells his boot-camp bunkmate about back home. The kind of story wistful and wise, that begins, 'Well, I don't know about you, but where I come from...."

And they did.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's a mixed bag, January 19, 2009

By	Wayne Engle (Madison, IN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In a book that is a collection of essays like this one, I suppose it is inevitable that the quality -- and the appeal of various chapters to various tastes -- will be uneven. That's true of this book.

Some of the 50 writers appear to have a genuine affection for "their" states. To others, including some who confess to being neither natives nor residents, their essay seems like a grim duty to be gotten over as soon as possible.

For instance, Daphne Beal and Alexandra Fuller give us memorable pictures of Wisconsin and Wyoming, respectively. Beal, a native, presents a fond but realistic look at her state, Germans, Poles, beer, cheese, Milwaukee, and all. Fuller displays a unique, wry wit in discussing Wyoming, full of quirky but decent "cowboys."

On the other hand, Susan Choi, a Hoosier, spends most of her time talking about her father, a Korean-American, and precious little on the residents of Indiana as a whole. And she uses that awful word, "Indianans", to describe us! Shame, shame! We're HOOSIERS, darn it! But she gives some pretty good descriptions of various parts of our (more varied than most people think) state.

Mainers get a good portrait from Heidi Julavits -- humorous looks at a flinty New England people who really DON'T waste words. Just like their stereotype. Eh-yep.

Dagoberto Gilb spends his entire allotted space on Iowa talking about the Mexicans who have moved there in recent years -- both legal and illegal. Mildly interesting -- but what about the other 90-plus percent of Iowans?

California hardly gets a fair hearing from William T. Vollmann, either. He talks much about how the nasty old white people have despoiled the state's beaches, forests, mountains, take your pick. When he announces that his favorite city in the whole, big wide country is San Francisco, you know where his basic sympathies lie. The goings-on in an S & M club and dungeon have little to do with the state or its people, but we get a full, bated-breath description of them from Vollmann. Thanks so much for sharing that with us, Bill.

Connecticut appears as a once-WASP state in transition in Rick Moody's essay. He's a native, and he gives us a vivid mind's eye view of the state while skilfully weaving his own story into and through it.

Finally, there is my choice for the worst essay in the book: That of David Rakoff on Utah. I don't know what Rakoff has against the Mormon church, whose people founded the state, but the essay is mainly concerned with blatantly and unapologetically slamming the LDS in any way possible. A number of "While I was there I was told" allegations against the Mormons are made, most of them nonsense, some downright scurrilous. Rakoff's aim seems to be to make Utah appear a desert wasteland, populated mostly by religious fanatics.

In my opinion, a number of the writers spend far too much time bemoaning the "plight of the black man" and how the whites "stole the Indians' land." Show me a huge, diverse nation that was founded without some groups succeeding and others falling behind, and I'll show you a fairy tale.