Pre-Owned Storm Country: A Journey Through the Heart of America (Hardcover) by Peter Davies, Pete Davies

Publishers Weekly,Open spaces, vast sky and the terrifying violence of wild tornados are the real stars of British novelist Pete Davies's ( The Last Election ) travelogue, but there are plenty of people in it, too, explaining themselves and their lives. Davies loves it all, and in this account of his 7500-mile journey in an old Ford pickup through the Great Plains and the Bad Lands in 1990 he catches the essence of tornado country and its people. His own encounters with the storms are hair-raising, and the tales he hears of them are awesome. He is masterful in describing the physical quality of the heartlands, and against that vivid backdrop, the people emerge memorably and without cliche. Davies describes them ``struggling to stay afloat in their struggling little towns as the sky turns black and the wind gets up, as the small farms go under and the water table falls, as the cities catch fire on the horizon . . . . '' Insightful and moving, this is an extraordinary picture of America from a skillful and compassionate observer. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved