Big Muddy: 2down the Mississippi Through America's Heartland

Loosely following the 1882 path of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, Hall ( Judgment Day ) and Wood, an economist and consultant, drove alongside the river's course in 1990-1991 seeking to discover changes over the intervening 108 years. Unexpectedly, they found a deeply troubled waterway. The Mississippi, they write, is polluted and poisoned, damned and silted; many river towns struggle for survival; and much of the surrounding populace, especially blacks in the Delta, live in a despair unknown even in times of slavery. In this candid re-creation of their journey, the authors combine accounts of the river's dark and bloody past and its dismal present with side trips and little-known facts to create a travelogue reminiscent of Jonathan Raban's Old Glory. Photos not seen by PW. History Book Club and QPB selections. (Aug.)