Gerald Haslam has emerged as the most important writer since John Steinbeck and William Saroyan to chronicle, in essays as well as stories, what he has dubbed "the other California," the Central Valley of the Golden State. He has won many awards, receiving in 1994 the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History, the Commonwealth Club of California Silver Medal for Californiana, and an honorable mention for the PEN USA West Nonfiction Award. He also received the Bay Area Book Reviewers' Association Award for Nonfiction in 1993 and the Josephine Miles Award for fiction from PEN in 1990. Haslam's stories and essays have appeared in over three hundred magazines and anthologies, including The Nation, Sierra, The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Modern American Short Fiction, and The St. Martin's Guide to Writing. He has had a major influence on the scholarly and popular perceptions of western...