Prairie Days

The essays in the book are wonderful. The photographs are superb. The author takes note of James Agee and Walker Evans and this seems to be a similar enterprise. The subject matter here is the author's home state and region, western Minnesota. The prairie is endless. It suffices to spread out the Icelanders and Norwegians and other immigrants in Minnesota. Holm was born on a farm eight miles north of Minneota, Minnesota. His Icelandic grandfather homesteaded there in 1880. Holm left the farm and made his way East to a teaching job next to the Atlantic Ocean. Minneota was a jumble of accents, Norwegian, Polish, German, Swedish, Flemish. Holm writes that north Europe's cast-offs moved to Minnesota. In western Minnesota brick is Catholic and wood is Lutheran. Minneota was a community born out of failure. No one arrived there who had been a success elsewhere. People came to farm. The language of power and success is false. Although Iceland had a history of losing, it made a great civilization. Bravo Bill Holm! Your book of essays, (along with the photographs in it), is magnificent.