M.J. Andersen

What is home? To M.J. Andersen it’s a warm cup of tea, a blazing fire, and a quilt sewn by hand, all nestled together in Plainville, a South Dakota township. In “Portable Prairie: Confessions of an Unsettled Midwesterner,” quiet landscapes slow the fast-paced writer, now settled out East, in a large Victorian with her husband. But New England life is not what she imagined. Musing on Tolstoy’s works and her own early-childhood Christian values, Andersen connects the meaning of home with South Dakota, reviving small-town ideals in a compelling way. Steeped in the complexities of prairie life and imminent self-discovery, Andersen’s memoir was reportedly poignant enough that it got Garrison Keillor blinking back tears. 870 Grand Ave., St. Paul; 651-646-2665