Novelists and non-fiction: Frank Bill's House of Grit.

Late last year, when we first encountered Frank Bill's name, he was advising readers of Granta to avoid the vicious, meth-laced ganglands surrounding S. Ellen Jones Elementary School.

Pair of sneakers beats a full NSP house?

There has been an animated off-line discussion about this piece, which appeared in Granta way back in September, when our attention was diverted from gangs to gaping bridge holes. My guess is that Bob Caesar won't be asking Mr. Bill to write the forward for James A. Crutchfield's bicentennial book.

There's still trouble in the heartland. Now it's out there in the fields.

OPINION

Scorched Earth in the Midwest

By FRANK BILL

Published: July 28, 2012

Corydon, Ind.

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John Sommers II/Reuters

Withered corn plants on a drought-stricken farm near Evansville, Ind.

IT’S July and the temperatures throughout southern Indiana and northern Kentucky are an inferno, in some cases scorching to over 100 degrees, and we know it’s not even August yet; it’s only going to get hotter. Several days in a row I get a mind-splitter headache; it’s so bad, it hurts to blink.

Frank Bill is identified as the author of a "forthcoming novel" called Donnybrook. His web site is Frank Bill's House of Grit.

More vicious gang graffiti ... and right downtown!

Boy, it's a good thing Frank Bill didn't see these when he was in town.

Pair of sneakers beats a full NSP house?

There has been an animated off-line discussion about this piece, which appeared in Granta way back in September, when our attention was diverted from gangs to gaping bridge holes. My guess is that Bob Caesar won't be asking Mr. Bill to write the forward for James A. Crutchfield's bicentennial book.

The Heartland: Ten Years After 9/11, by Frank Bill

 ... We drive down Vincennes Street, the main drag in New Albany, Indiana. From Vincennes, the area appears safe. But cruise the side streets around the high school and S Ellen Jones Elementary School and it’s turf. Houses are tagged with gang graffiti. Every block is marked as territory. He points out a pair of sneakers hanging from their laces on a power line. ‘It marks the area. It means a drug dealer is living at one of these houses. Sells right out here.’

‘These gangs sell meth?’ I ask.

‘They do,’ Merritt tells me. ‘And crack, marijuana, various prescription meds.’