num_pages: 320
description: In Dispatches from Pluto adventure writer Richard Grant takes on the most American place on Earththe enigmatic beautiful often derided Mississippi Delta.Richard Grant and his girlfriend were living in a shoebox apartment in New York City when they decided on a whim to buy an old plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. Dispatches from Pluto is their journey of discovery into this strange and wonderful American place. Imagine A Year In Provence with alligators and assassins or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with hunting scenes and swamp-to-table dining.On a remote isolated strip of land three miles beyond the tiny community of Pluto Richard and his girlfriend Mariah embark on a new life. They learn to hunt grow their own food and fend off alligators snakes and varmints galore. They befriend an array of unforgettable local charactersblues legend T-Model Ford cookbook maven Martha Foose catfish farmers eccentric millionaires and the actor Morgan Freeman. Grant brings an adept empathetic eye to the fascinating people he meets capturing the rich extraordinary culture of the Delta while tracking its utterly bizarre and criminal extremes. Reporting from all angles as only an outsider can Grant also delves deeply into the Deltas lingering racial tensions. He finds that de facto segregation continues. Yet even as he observes major structural problems he encounters many close loving and interdependent relationships between black and white familiesand good reasons for hope.Dispatches from Pluto is a book as unique as the Delta itself. Its lively entertaining and funny containing a travel writers flair for in-depth reporting alongside insightful reflections on poverty community and race. Its also a love story as the nomadic Grant learns to settle down. He falls not just for his girlfriend but for the beguiling place they now call home. Mississippi Grant concludes is the best-kept secret in America.
language: English
title: Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta
publisher: Simon & Schuster