Political and economic history gives way to analyses of books and movies, which give way to Christman’s personal reflections on life in Michigan, where he lives. You could describe the form as disparate things in similar containers that together create a larger whole, which is pretty close to the way Christman describes his fellow Midwesterners. Thus does the book, like some concrete poetry, take a shape that conveys what it also puts into words.

Midwesterners, Christman argues, are seen as average.

...an engrossing meatloaf of a text comprised, among other things, of a tour of land-use policy in the Midwest, a discussion and critique of literary representations of Midwestern loneliness, and an investigation of the region’s troubled history with race.

The Midwest is not merely flyover country, as Phil Christman shows with Midwest Futures, a collection of essays and observations that disputes that hackneyed phrase used by bicoastal elites.

Christman’s text is pointed and often very funny as he ponders a subject that has been hiding in plain sight.