Prairie Days

In the eye of a ""woods person,"" southwestern Minnesota is a bleak, empty landscape; in the eye of a ""prairie person,"" it is a source of esthetic delight and infinite charm. After a sojourn in the eastern coastal states, Holm came home to the prairie. Here, he writes about his heritage, the land, its people and a vanishing way of life. Minnesota, he tells us, was a community born out of failure, an immigrant land settled by northern European farmers a century ago (his own antecedents are Icelandic). On the theme of failure, Holm traces the poignant history of one immigrant family, the Bardals, from arrival in 1880 to the lone survivor in 1981. That is his serious, reflective side. Holm can be whimsicalin his tales of rivalries between Catholic (brick) and Lutheran (wood), there are echoes of Lake Woebegon. He is eloquent in his description of prairie landscapes and his admiration for the hardy souls who settled there. Readers who enjoyed Making Hay (Verlyn Klinkenborg) will want to read Prairie Days. Photos. (September 28)