It's very Pop, the shape--as Pop as Mickey Mouse. This is how artist Nate Lowman describes the map of the United States, the subject of the 22 paintings that are the focus of this volume. The Maps, all produced by cutting fragments of studio drop-cloth into the shape of individual states and combining them, offer varied iterations on the same form. They explore the effects of chance, gesture, and history, merging erratic splatters and stains with allusions to American quilt-making, Pop art, and politics. Infusing the geometries of the United States with a gritty, gestural tactility, they expound on the complexities and contradictions of the American way. Full-color plates and generous details are interspersed with poems and excerpts reflecting on America by John Berryman, Langston Hughes, Francis Scott Key, Emma Lazarus, Malcolm R. Mooney, and others. In his introductory essay, Paul Alexander quotes from an interview with the artist as he speaks about the works' relationship to the contemporary political landscape. Have we gone from optimism to pessimism? Lowman asks. I don't know. But I do know the America we live in now is a pendulum that will change.

Paul Alexander is the author of seven books, among them Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath (1991) and Salinger: A Biography (1999).