Kimball now calls his second book, Liar's Moon (1999), the first of his Prairie Trilogy.

But, as Kimball wrote in an e-mail in 2000: Unfortunately, I didn't come upon the idea [that] the three works were a trilogy until after I had finished writing all three.

Had I thought of it earlier I would have done much more to weave them together.

For instance, one of the characters in Dirt of Other Dogs (the second one written— finished in draft form about 1986, as yet unplaced, and obviously in need of revision guided by some understanding editor's hand—and the third of the trilogy, set in the indefinite future—the way I now put it: [Liar's Moon] the 19th century, [Harvest Ballads] the 20th, and [Dirt of Other Dogs] the 21st) would have been [about] Isadora and Baldwin's progeny. As it is, the only things they...