Middle Earth

A satire about a city girl lost in the heartland

Lucinda Trout is the quintessential New Yorker: put-upon, caffeine-addicted, rent-strapped and desperate to get herself the hell out of the city. A lifestyle correspondent for a Manhattan morning show, Lucinda makes her escape by way of a long-term assignment in Prairie City, a fictional metropolis deep in the semi-rural heart of the Midwest. "Everyone I'd meet in Prairie City would be both interesting and kind," she daydreams, "every conversation meaningful, every gesture sincere, every woman nonanorectic, every man tall and able to fix cars."

Lucinda falls in love with her new home at first sight, and if The Quality of Life...

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