AmericanMidwest

The American Midwest, known for its lack of ethnic diversity and socially conservative values, bears the brunt of many of Hendricks's remarks and observations. Her town of Paris, Illinois, is one of "those Illinois towns with the funny names" people have to escape from every so often; her students inParis are "by and large good Midwesterners" who seem "to know very little about anything." The students at her first college in New Geneva, Minnesota, or the "Land of the Dying Shopping Mall" where everyone was "so blond . . . that brunettes were often presumed to be from foreign countries," fare no better in Hendricks's eyes. There everyone was expected to be a "Heidi" who would "lug goat milk up the hills and not think twice" and who would never complain. These Midwestern characteristics are the antithesis of Hendricks's personality; they lead her to tell her sister, "Illinois. It makes me...