Adventure writer Richard Grant takes on ”the most American place on Earth” the enigmatic, beautiful, often derided Mississippi Delta. Richard Grant & his girlfriend were living in a shoebox apartment in New York City when they decided on a whim to buy an old plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. This is their journey of discovery into this strange & wonderful American place. Imagine A Year In Provence with alligators & assassins, or Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil with hunting scenes & swamp-to-table dining. On a remote, isolated strip of l&, three miles beyond the tiny community of Pluto, Richard & his girlfriend, Mariah, embark on a new life. They learn to hunt, grow their own food, & fend off alligators, snakes, & varmints galore. They befriend an array of unforgettable local characters, blues legend T-Model Ford, cookbook maven Martha Foose, catfish farmers, eccentric millionaires, & the actor Morgan Freeman. Grant brings an adept, empathetic eye to the fascinating people he meets, capturing the rich, extraordinary culture of the Delta, while tracking its utterly bizarre & criminal extremes. Reporting from all angles as only an outsider can, Grant also delves deeply into the Delta`s lingering racial tensions. He finds that de facto segregation continues. Yet even as he observes major structural problems, he encounters many close, loving, & interdependent relationships between black & white families & good reasons for hope. Dispatches from Pluto is a book as unique as the Delta itself. It`s lively, entertaining, & funny, containing a travel writer`s flair for in-depth reporting alongside insightful reflections on poverty, community, & race. It`s also a love story, as the nomadic Grant learns to settle down. He falls not just for his girlfriend but for the beguiling place they now call home. Mississippi, Grant concludes, is the best-kept secret in America.