Overstory-- Zero: Real Life in the Timber Country of Oregon

In timber industry parlance, overstory: zero means ``clear-cut,'' or removal of all the trees in a stand of timber. Heilman lives in Douglas County, Oregon, the self-styled ``Timber Capital of the Nation,'' a sparsely populated, economically depressed area. For five winters, he worked with a company reforestation crew, planting seedling trees at the rate of 700 a day. A high school dropout, Heilman had more than 30 occupations--logger, sawmill worker, roofer, house painter--before an on-the-job accident left him unable to do hard physical labor. He writes engagingly and with sensitivity about the life of a laborer, about the struggle of a backwater community to survive. Heilman looks at the blue-collar worker's and the middle-class professional's perceptions and prejudices regarding each other. This is a vivid portrait of a ``marginal population'' and an area in transition. (Sept.)