{"product_id":"2940169499797","title":"Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom a 2017 Pulitzer-winning newspaperman, an unsentimental ode to America's heartland as seen in small-town Iowaamp;mdash;a story of reinvention and resilience, environmental and economic struggle, and surprising diversity and hope.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen \u003ci\u003eThe Storm Lake Times\u003c\/i\u003e, a tiny Iowa twice-weekly, won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on big corporate agri-industry for poisoning the local rivers and lake, it was a coup on many counts: a strike for the well being of a rural community; a triumph for that endangered species, a family-run rural news weekly; and a salute to the special talents of a fierce and formidable native son, Art Cullen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this candid and timely book, Cullen describes how the rural prairies have changed dramatically over his career, as seen from the vantage point of a farming and meatpacking town of 15,000 in Northwest Iowa. Politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration are all themes in \u003ci\u003eStorm Lake\u003c\/i\u003e, a chronicle of a resilient newspaper, as much a survivor as its town.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStorm Lake's people are the book's heart: the family that swam the Mekong River to find Storm Lake; the Latina with a baby who wonders if she'll be deported from the only home she has known; the farmer who watches markets in real time and tries to manage within a relentless agriculture supply chain that seeks efficiency for cheaper pork, prepared foods, and ethanol. Storm Lake may be a community in flux, occasionally in crisis (farming isn't for the faint hearted), but one that's not disappearingamp;mdash;in fact, its population is growing with immigrants from Laos, Mexico, and elsewhere. Thirty languages are now spoken there, and soccer is more popular than football.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIowa plays an outsize role in national politics. Iowa introduced Barack Obama and voted bigly for Donald Trump. Is the state leaning blue, red, or purple in the lead-up to 2020? Is it a bellwether for America? A nostalgic mirage from \u003ci\u003eThe Music Man\u003c\/i\u003e, or a harbinger of America's future? Cullen's answer is complicated and honestamp;mdash;but with optimism and the stubbornness that is still the state's, and his, dominant quality.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47116811829488,"sku":"2940169499797","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169499797_p0.jpg?v=1769895695","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169499797","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}