Thought also of Sometimes a Great Notion, of a similar time period, and the west, and (sixty-year spoiler) features its own flooded banks. Would make a good pair taken together, the Stampers and McClellans being so similar, the perspectives/style so different. You could make a class outta that.

Highly recommend both. We'll see if it's just got the shine on it of a recent completion, but I felt this book was pretty good.

Somewhere in there watched Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (on acid) which felt highly complementary (the movie, to the book) as a coming of age in America kind of thing. Lot of similarity in the depiction of fathers and sons, in Malick's signature breathy V.O. and Wolfe's more poetic departures.

maybe I was hungry?

a rightward and sort of quickly resetting spin