From the Book Review Editor

F r o m t h e B o o k R e v ie w E d it o r E v e l y n F u n d a First, our thanks to Allen K. Mears whose generous contribution made possible our use of the dramatic Leigh A. Wiener photos of Robinson Jeffers. Turning now to the short reviews, I think readers will see that they seem to naturally come together in a provocative dialogue to consider how we define ourselves by region, religion, ethnicity, and gender. Under review here are books that, on one hand, set boundaries , draw borders, and map out the distinctions between “us” and “them.” The underlying assumption is that we define ourselves by our boundaries: this is where I reside; thus, this is who I am. But also (and sometimes simultaneously) in these books and reviews, the writers challenge, blur, or dismantle those human impositions of distinction. They suggest that those artificial lines of demarcation are too limit­ ing, too reductive; rather, the margins are transitional areas, thresh­ olds that invite transformation and new perspectives. Borders have a certain sanctity, and I am reminded of O. E. Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth (1927) where Per Hansa and his family arrive in South Dakota in the earliest days of prairie homesteading to find a place without landmarks— or at least the “pure color” of tall grass and endless sky seem like “bluish-green infinity.” In this seem­ ingly formless land, Per Hansa seems preoccupied by the effort to set the boundaries, to search for the buried stakes that designate human ownership, and when he destroys those sunk into the ground by the Irish settlers, his wife Beret worries for his very soul. “The West”— no matter where we variously think that region begins or ends— is often characterized by an effort to fence in and fence out. Small wonder, then, that we have museums devoted to the history of barbed wire— that most controversial of western demarca­ tions— and books for antique collectors that place monetary value on what was once valued merely for its service of marking the margins. Lest my image suggest otherwise, there are no “barbs” in these reviews, but they do consider what it means to define our experience by the margins. As essayist Lisa Knopp writes, “Because an edge is the line where two things meet— white moon and blue sky, water and land, my curved palm and my baby’s head— I judge it to be a shared thing” (“Edges,” Field of Vision 1996). ...