Degraded Heartland by Maria Farland Halli's Picks Gene has nearly everything he’s

Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is

it will be so destroyed from above that people will say

I’m filled with hope for a brighter future

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north in this “incredibly fun journey through fae lands and dark magic” (NPR)

Degraded Heartland by Maria Farland Halli's Picks Gene has nearly everything he’sHow did rural America come to be viewed as backward and inferior, and how did literary modernism respond to and critique this perception? What happens when rural Americalong romanticized in pastoral literaturebecomes associated with deficiency, degradation, and decline? Maria Farland's Degraded Heartland is the first critical study of US literary antipastoral, a mode that exposes the stark realities of rural poverty and ecological devastation while