NORTH STAR COUNTRY

North Star Country explores country stores and county fairs, labor unions and dusty roads traveled by peddlers and truck drivers, and farms where families toil. Written in 1945 by acclaimed activist and writer Meridel Le Sueur, this unconventional history shines an uncommon light on ordinary people in the Upper Midwest. In the tradition of James Agee and John Dos Passos, Le Sueur creates a mosaic from the fabric of everyday life, including newspaper clippings, private letters, diaries, and lyrics from popular songs. Each quotation and brief vignette opens a window to an entire lifetime or a way of life. North Star Country highlights the struggles of American Indians and offers a fresh sensibility, untangling the history of the Upper Midwest, sorting it out, and returning it to the common people, to common readers.

Meridel Le Sueur was born into a socialist family in 1900 and lived until 1996, spending most of her life in the Middle West. Her stunning and eloquent works include short stories, novels, popular histories, books for children, poetry, and memoir. Blacklisted during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, Le Sueur regained prominence during the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s.