Myth and legend, tall tale and folktale, narratives crafted in various ways out of the short-grass prairies of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas—Philip Kimball has them all in his two brilliant novels, Harvesting Ballads (1984) and Liar's Moon (1999). His technique is similar in both books, a seemingly random, communal stream of consciousness that provides a structure out of which emerges the community's understanding of the story. The story of Liar's Moon tells of the settling of Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle during and after the Civil War. It fills the psychic space of the central prairies with tall tales full of mythic wisdom and the deeds of extraordinary men and women rather than the gods and goddesses of classical myth, but Kimball's purpose is the same—to explain, heighten, and celebrate the cultural and political origins of.....
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