Just over a hundred years ago Mark Twain created an American classic with Life on the Mississippi, a vivid chronicle of the majestic river that winds through America's heartland. Now Big Muddy follows in its wake to bring us an evocative, entertaining, and enormously informative account of our country's premier waterway at the close of the twentieth century. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the Mississippi sweeps through America's center, capturing all of its astonishing variety. From the Midwestern pragmatism of Minnesota's mythical Lake Wobegon region to the jazz- and blues-rich but cash-poor city of East St. Louis ... from the old men in sweat-stained Dobb's hats trading flood stories at country crossroad stores to the legendary Highway 61 immortalized by Bob Dylan ... from the Delta tenant farmers scratching out a living on pesticide-ridden soil to the rich Cajun ancestry of Louisiana's hidden bayous, the river keeps rolling along in glorious celebration and somber reflection of the people and the places that have shaped its path even as it has shaped their lives. But more than just a colorful rhapsody to life along the Mississippi, Big Muddy is a robust recreation of the history that has coursed through its waters: the early explorers and their futile search for the fabled Northwest passage, the steamboat pilots and riverboat gamblers of Twain's era, the various tribes who battled for the right to a life along its shores, and the tanker captains who navigate the shocking "Dead Zone" of the modern Delta as they face the ecological nightmares that threaten the Mississippi's future. Wide in scope and irresistibly appealing, this vibrant cultural commemoration of America's greatest river is a worthy successor to Mark Twain's landmark book and a powerful social, political, and environmental portrait of a uniquely American experience.