Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Readings: The Real America?

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One of my favorite authors, Ron Hansen, on small town America in his outstanding short story collection, Nebraska:

Everyone is famous in this town. And everyone is necessary.

Think about that. Meditate on it for a bit. I personally have never quite known that mode of necessity. But my parents knew it. You might say that I came close enough as a boy to catch a whiff of it. Close enough to account for the ache of nostalgia that Hansen's lovely book caused to rise in my throat as I read the final words of the title story.
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