"Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in he mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. The night before Sonny had played his last game of football for Thalia High School, but it wasn't that that made him feel so strange and alone. It was just the look of the town." Chapter 1, p. 1

"... with nobody at all on the road or in the cab Sonny sometimes got the funny feeling that he was driving the old truck around and around in a completely empty place." Chapter 1, p. 14

"'Because life's too damn hard here,' Lois said. 'The land's got too much power over you. Being rich here is a good way to go insane. Everything's flat and empty and there's...