Writing About Place

Before leaving prison I started working on a novel about a convict returning to Indiana. I told the writing group I had hit a snag because I thought I needed to do research of what life in Indiana, especially rural Indiana, was like now. I got criticism for my opinion. 

Reading Lee Coles' What Comes After “Kmart Realism”? Writing Place in the Era of American Uniformity, I think I was right:

But I’ve been worried lately that the uniformity of Nowhere Places has a more pernicious effect than I’d realized, that uniform places give rise to uniform feelings, constraining what’s possible for a piece of literature set there. No

I should be clear we’re talking about rural America here. Welty’s assertion holds true, I think, for most cities....

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The problem now, as I see it, is that the agrarian world of rural America—its customs and folkways and idioms—has all but vanished, eclipsed by the metastasizing influence of consumerism. This raises the question: what comes after “Kmart Realism,” when the brand names and newfangled gadgets and fast food concoctions are no longer novelties, but simply the norm? What strategies can a writer employ to capture the uniqueness of her characters in this world?

One possibility is to pay attention to strangeness.

Makes me think my concerns  were not misplaced. Changes came while I was gone.

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3/8/22