Writing style
Conversational · Descriptive · Essayistic · Witty
Apple BooksGreat Plains
Travel
- First published
- 1989
- Print length
- 290 pagesPicador USA, 2001
Description
Ian Frazier travels more than 25,000 miles across the Great Plains, treating the region not as empty country between coasts but as a landscape crowded with history, stories, and contested meanings. He moves through reservations, ranch country, small towns, battle sites, and crime landmarks associated with figures ranging from Sitting Bull to Bonnie and Clyde and the Kansas murders recounted in In Cold Blood. Observation, historical research, anecdote, and encounters with residents allow him to connect broad forces—Indigenous history, settlement, violence, economic hardship—with the texture of particular places. Blending travel narrative, scholarship, and western adventure, Great Plains asks what this immense interior reveals about the character of the American West and the country built around it.
Reading profile
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Pace
Moderate
Tone
Humorous · Intimate · Reflective · Wistful
Structure
Braided · Episodic
Focus
Atmosphere · Information · Voice
Emotional intensity
3 / 5
Reading complexity
1–5 · higher means more demanding- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
Themes
Book details
For the print edition listed above.
- Publisher
- Picador USA
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780312278502
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