While reading Farm Team, it is difficult not to smell the fresh earth clotted between the heifers' hooves or to see the blue skies patching across the Minnesota skyline.

Weaver creates a vivid, sensorial world into which the reader dives effortlessly, so thick and authentic are the descriptions throughout the novel.

The setting is a central force in Farm Team; the dichotomy between the haves and have-nots described through the land" scape of the town of Flint and the neighboring countryside helps build the tension of the novel to its climax.

Billy lives on the outskirts of the poor Minnesota town of Flint. He comes from a farming family, and farming defines his life, as does the life cycle of a small town.

Weaver juxtaposes the townspeople with the farming community, and thereby displays the tension of rural American life.

Furthermore, the constant descriptions of the farmland create...