Daze on the Plains Audiocassette: A New Yorker on the Level

Raised in Kansas, transplanted New York City playwright-essayist Staten, wanting to renew her roots, recently returned for several months to eastern Colorado in the Great Plains. Fed up with the dirt, noise, crime and abrasive people of Manhattan, she rhapsodized about the lives of rural folk and was almost stunned by the natural beauty she discovered in the heartland. But reality was not long in taking hold: she hated having to kill snakes, insects and mice (she was traumatized by watching a mouse she had poisoned take all day to die). She missed the ready access to the media and, above all, discerned that small towns are dying as malls and convenience stores proliferate. She found the people warm and trusting but limited and close-minded culturally. Ultimately Staten realized that after 25 years as a New Yorker she could no longer think of the prairie as home. to elim dangling modifier In a concluding chapter that will bring a lump to the throat of those who love the Big Apple, she describes her return to Chaos-on-the-Hudson. Beautifully written and perceptive. (May)