State By State: A Panoramic Portrait Of America [Hardcover]

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.

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.

I've hitchhiked cross-country three times; I've lived and worked in 13 states, and have visited them all with only one or two exceptions. My favorite reading when flying is a collection of essays - for obvious reasons. State-By-State is exactly the kind of book I would pick up in paperback at the airport. [I have a hard cover copy.]

I ordered this sight unseen and I was not disappointed. It is very enjoyable reading. To get a sense of whether the various authors hit the target set by the editors, I first read those essays of states where I had spent the most time. Except for the essay on South Dakota (essayist: Saïd Sayrafiezadeh) I was very impressed. I thought the following were particularly excellent: North Dakota, South Carolina, California, and Iowa. In fact, every essay was superb, except Saïd''s. I have no idea why the editors accepted his self-centered, smug out-of-town review. I particularly admired the ability of William T. Vollmann (CA) to cover so much territory in so few pages (his was one of the longer essays at 13 pages) and let me re-live my halcyon days in paradise.

It was probably only me, but I did not recognize the names of any of the authors, except for one (Randall Kenan, NC). It appeared most of the essayists were new authors, and I did not recognize any of their novels. That may not be surprising because with a math and science background, I only began a serious reading program in 2002 and have not gotten more recent than the 1920's with some exceptions (Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Anaïs Nin and Ernest Hemingway, being the most notable). If not a novelist, the essayists were more than likely to be on staff or contributors to the New York Times or The New Yorker. Even when I learned one (Tony Horwitz) had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize (1995), I did not recognize any of his books.

The editors did include 30 tables of demographic data, everything from cigarette consumption to breastfeeding rate to suicide rate at the end of the book. The book would not have been diminished had these tables not been included. Somehow the tables seemed to make the book appear more like a reference book. Perhaps it was the glaring, bold font.

Examples of how the essayists got it exactly right (for the most part):

Cristina Henriquez (TX) noted that Texans make a note of whether one is born a Texan or if one is transplanted. Henriquez got that exactly right. Christina came from Iowa.

Anthony Bourdain (NJ) reminds us how the state has become a "punchline" but at the same time, when he travels in the US, he notes that every state now looks exactly like New Jersey (malls, franchise eateries, Victoria Secret superstores, and Home Depots). Touché.

Jonathan Franzen (NY) reminded me again why so many people have a negative view of the Big Apple and New Yorkers in general (it's likely most people are not aware there is more to New York than the city). The author simply transcribed an interview with the governor's and mayor's straphangers and, to some extent, the main men themselves. I think Franzen took the money and ran, providing us a glimpse of "a New York minute."

Jack Hitt (SC) explains the difference between Charleston and the rest of the state. Superb. This is perhaps the best of the best essays for hitting the editors' mark. New Yorkers have nothing over the Charlestonians when it comes to snobbery, according to Hitt. For proof he notes: the residents say "the two rivers that shape the peninsula of downtown Charleston - the Ashley and the Cooper - come together to form the Atlantic Ocean."

Louise Erdrich (ND) notes that the density of her home state and mine is between nine and ten people per square mile, and most of them live in three "big" cities. If you avoid these population centers, she says, you can travel in a blissful abeyance of humankind. You can help me out by doing a word search for me, but I believe Louise is the only essayist to use the word "blissful" when writing about his/her particular state.

If you have not lived in or experienced the majority of American states, you might not enjoy this book. If you think you know the American states, pick this up at the airport bookstore on your next trip. If it's a business trip to a state you've not been before, this might give you some cocktail chatter for the icebreaker.

Just skip Saïd''s essay on South Dakota. Go straight to South Carolina.

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