The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his existence and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400-the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a tale he wrote for the Washington Post.

Like so many young American lovers, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a hard time building ends meet because they tried to raise their twin guys in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris-in his part about If You Lived Here YOU WOULD BE Home RIGHT NOW: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House around the Prairie being a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post-stumbled on a study that would switch his life. It had been a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom from the list and gleefully composed what “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) … Crimson Lake Region, Minn.” The storyplot went viral, to put it mildly.

Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County. While these were unflappably polite-it’s not really called “Minnesota Great” for nothing-they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually go to their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, approved. Impressed by the local people’ warmth, laughter and hospitality -and ever more alert to his financial situation and torturous commute-Chris and Briana eventually made a decision to relocate to the town he’d just dragged through the dirt on the Internet.

If You Lived Here You’d Be Home right now is the tale of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions-good and bad-on their minds. In Crimson Lake State, Ingraham encounters the intensity and power of small-town gossip, challenges to discover a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town existence that the coastal media usually miss. It’s a wry and wonderful tale-with data!-of what happened to 1 family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone.