First published 2012
Professor emeritus E. R. Baxter III sits among the archives and memories of Niagara County, piecing together fragments that span millennia. Ancient cave paintings blend with 1960s mimeographed verses. The thunder of buffalo herds gives way to the industrial hum of cereal production. Baxter assembles these disparate elements through a cut-up technique, creating a mosaic where natural history intersects with human settlement. The land itself becomes a palimpsest, each era writing over the last while traces of the past remain visible beneath. From his perch at the community college, Baxter watches time collapse as geological epochs meet suburban sprawl. The massacre that eliminated the buffalo connects to the factories that now shape wheat into breakfast. His method mirrors the layered landscape he studies, where every stone and street holds multiple stories. This fragmented approach reveals how place accumulates meaning across centuries, building identity from countless overlapping narratives.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, academic
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: fragmented-narrative, palimpsest
Setting: Niagara County, Niagara
Period: Millennia, 1960s, 20th-Century
250 pages · Kindle Edition · Starcherone Books