Steven Church grew up in the 1970s and '80s in Lawrence, Kansas, a town whose predictable daily rhythms give way easily to anxiety--and a place that, since Civil War times, has been a canvas for sporadic scenes of havoc and violence in the popular imagination. Childhood was quiet on the surface, but Steven grew up scared--scared of killer tornadoes, winged monkeys, violent movies, authority figures, the dissolution of his parents' marriage, and most...