A British documentary broadcast a few weeks ago described the impact of meths on Fresno, California. One thing I can tell you is that, while American media may be less and less interested in "flyover country", a lot of Europeans are curious and interested in it, and even regard it as 'the real America'.
I think there's plenty out there that is interesting in it, and I don't think it is wrong to say that it is the "real" America. It's not that the other places aren't part of America, but there's only one New York with its own personality, one L.A. with Hollywood dreams, etc. Chicago kind of falls in the middle because while it is a big city with a fair amount of glitz & glamour, it's still quite Midwestern, and it's pretty much out here with no other "big" cities around. (No, Milwaukee doesn't count
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Well, it is also a matter of background. I was born and brought up in the Milan area, then I lived in Rome, Oxford, and London. I never lived in a small town, and the only time I did - when I served in the Italian army in the town of L'Aquila, the same which had the earthquake recently - I felt constrained and even imprisoned. Great numbers are part of my background, and I doubt I could ever live in a tiny community. But as an Italian, I do not have this tremendous separation between vast metropoleis (that is what the plural of metropolis ought to be) and "outside". In Italy there is a lot of towns of all sizes, most of which regard themselves as being "as good as Milan, only not so big" and have plenty of tradition and spirit. That is why I can feel a great deal of sympathy for "flyover country", even though, for choice, I would prefer to live somewhere like New York or at least Seattle.
And you are right about the sense of space in the States. I have felt it even in places such as Westchester County, NY. It is a completely different dimension.
Well, for example, Sinclair Lewis was from the Minneapolis area, but he felt it necessary, I guess, to go to NYC to be able to become a famous writer. So did Capote (Louisiana). I know Lewis went back to Minnesota later and wrote some stuff. Well, he seemingly wrote about America, but he had to go to the Big Apple to do it. Not sure if this comment is apropos
That is pretty much universal. From antiquity - Herodotus and Aristotle had to go to Athens, Horace and Virgil to Rome, Shakespeare to London. There was a period in which you hardly counted as a writer in Europe unless you were known in Paris; even if you wrote in German, Italian, Polish or Spanish, rather than French. (Indeed, a great deal of work in those languages was published in Paris first.) Any artist with ambitions will go to the centre of their profession. The market is larger, you are in touch with all the new developments just by walking out of your front door, and the opportunity to make useful or rewarding contacts infinitely greater. Most people eventually go back to their own towns, or - like Virgil - decamp for somewhere else, but to spend a few years in the intellectual capital is more or less a part of the life of every ambitious writer.
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