FIVE VOICES ONE PLACE: AN INTRODUCTION

In coining the name "Siouxland" for his fictional world, South Dakotan Frederick Manfred acknowledged the Big Sioux River drainage basin, and provided an alternative to the arbitrary designations of states - Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nehtaska. Morris's cartographical imagination springs from identifying himself "petched on the border between West and Midwest," Wydeven argues, "in the center of the country, at midpoint on an east-west line from ocean to ocean" (290), and it springs also from "the town grid of Central City" - where two railroads co-existed, creating confusing streets and angles (291).