Somewhere in America

the long version

"Mark Singer has a dream job: he travels the country in search of under-the-radar stories, unusual but emblematic tales of American lives, and writes about them in the New Yorker column "U.S. Journal." The results, now for the first time collected in one volume, are portraits of life in the big cities and small towns of contemporary America." "Singer meets the teenage reporters of a Texas town's only newspaper, explores the life of a western Massachusetts diner and the community that needs it, attends a meeting of obituary writers, and offers a pit-side view of the battle over cockfighting. From righteous, middle-aged nudists in Vermont to righteous, middle-aged Civil War reenactors in Louisiana, Singer brings humane spirit to his snapshots of people and their trials. These essays reveal a broad portrait of America at the beginning of the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.