Magpie Rising: Sketches from the Great Plains

About this book

The rolling billowing delicate landscape of Nebraska s Sandhills; the tombstone of Billy the Kid stolen so often that it must be caged and shackled in Fort Sumner New Mexico; an intercontinental ballistic missile trundling down a highway under heavy guard in Weld County Colorado; cottonwoods and cranes faded hotels and abandoned trailers painted aqua and purple; the ghosts of Pawnees Cheyennes and Kiowas and generations of settlers whose descendants now grouse in a caf in Heimdahl North Dakota or roar off to a bikers convention in Sturgis South Dakota. These are some of the things that catch Merrill Gilfillan s eye and ear in this radiant collection of essays. Written with a poetic economy that often attains grandeur Magpie Rising is an exhilarating tour of the Great Plains its geography wildlife history mythology and food its vast spaces and weirdly synchronous time. This is nature writing at its most evocative and insightful.