Fragile Giants: A Natural History of the Loess Hills Book

This book is a collection of the author's notes, impressions, vignettes, short essays and verbal fragments (he calls them "sketches"). They were written during 1983-86 as Gilfillian crisscrossed the Great Plains from Canada to Texas (he says he drove 50,000 miles), stopping here and there - sometimes in cities and small towns, sometimes off-road - to take out a sharpened pencil and note what was there to be "noticed."

Gilfillian is a poet with language, and his perceptions are informed by a wide knowledge of music, literature and civilizations past and present. Each piece can be read multiple times, like poems, to wring more meaning and feeling from them. The stories he draws on from Indian history are often compelling. And I especially enjoyed his longer essay on the Nebraska Sandhills, along with thoughts about the Nebraska writers Willa Cather and Mari Sandoz.

Recommended reading for anyone fascinated by the vastness of the high plains and its impact on those who have lived there - in a splendid kind of isolation. Also recommended: Ian Frazier's "Great Plains."