Stars bright and dim

Much great American writing is regional in a way that British or French writing never has been. Most of the best writing coming from the States inhabits a place which apparently feels no pressure from the great metropolitan centres — Annie Proulx on the Texas panhandle, Cormac McCarthy on the Mexican border territories, Jane Smiley on the Midwest. Even when a great city is in the vicinity, as in Anne Tyler’s or David Simon’s very different considerations of Baltimore, we feel a specific regional flavour emerging; John Cheever’s fictions of elegant suburban life have a distinctly north-eastern flavour which evidently still weighs heavily with writers of that particular region.

It was a good idea of the editors of this volume to embark on a systematic treatment of America at a moment when we are asked to think of the country again as a collection of harmonious but very different voices. Fifty writers, of different levels of distinction — some very distinguished indeed — have been asked to write about each of the 50 states. Some of them write about their home states, others about states which mean something special to them, one or two merely about a visit to a particular state.

The results are a little mixed, and some of these pieces embody the familiar and depressing present-tense vignette which so disfigures the travel pages of colour supplements: ‘We tour a famous cave nearby, and nobody remarks on my unusual silence as I walk through chambers of shining underground fortresses and cathedrals.’ Others resort to PR releases, issued by local government: ‘Omaha is a wealthy, highly “livable” city with successful large corporations, low unemployment, terrific public schools, nice houses and trees, restaurants filled to capacity, a thriving arts and music scene, even a new cinematheque.’