The Provincial American and Other Papers

At a moment when America was racing toward modernity, Meredith Nicholson paused to make a case for the small town. Written from deep within the heart of Indiana, these essays pulse with quiet conviction: that the provincial mind holds wisdom the metropolis cannot fathom, that character is forged in places where everyone knows your name, and that the echoes of the Civil War still reverberate through Main Street and mill pond alike. Nicholson writes as one who has owned his origins without apology. He recalls the local heroes who walked his childhood streets, the traditions passed down like heirlooms, the particular music of Hoosier speech. This is not nostalgia masquerading as philosophy. It is a sustained, intelligent argument that sophistication has its limitations, and that the supposedly simple life contains depths the city-dweller will never access. The essays, most originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, possess a wry warmth and an unashamed love of place. For anyone who has ever felt the tug of home against the seductions of the cosmopolitan, this book is a companion.