Critics such as Robert C. Wright have called Frederick Manfred the "midwest's William Faulkner." Like Faulkner, who created the mythical Yoknapatawpha County, Manfred produced a mythic and fictional version of Siouxland, where Minnesota meets South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa--the area where the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers mingle and Native Americans encountered a variety of European immigrants and their descendants. Manfred built two houses for himself against rocky hillsides in Luverne, Minnesota, at the site of the Sioux quarry for ceremonial pipes. His choice of site reveals his emotional attachment to the land. The first house was built in 1960 at the southernmost outcropping facing south toward Doon, Iowa, where he was born. This house was built into the solid rock facing, and only Manfred's high, windowed study, which he called his "tipi," could be seen from the road below. He built his second house in 1975, just across the...