‘A reminder that even the smallest newspapers can take the most powerful among us responsible.’ –The New York Times Book Review

“[The Surprise Lake Times has an] unwavering commitment to elevating the community… Not really the enemy of the people but a voice for the people.” –Beto O’Rourke, Democratic Presidential Candidate, via Instagram

From a Pulitzer-winning newspaperman, an unsentimental ode to America’s heartland–a story of reinvention and resilience, environmental and financial struggle, about Surprise Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Wish from a Heartland Newspapers and surprising variety and hope.

When The Storm Lake Times, a little Iowa twice-weekly, won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on big corporate and business agri-industry for poisoning the local rivers and lake, it had been a coup on many matters: a strike for the wellness of a rural community; and a triumph for the endangered species, a family-run rural news weekly.

With this candid and timely book, Cullen describes how the heartland provides changed significantly over his career, as seen from your vantage point of a farming and meatpacking city of 15,000 in Northwest Iowa. Politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration are all themes in Surprise Lake, a chronicle of a resilient newspaper, as much a survivor as its town.

Iowa takes on an outsize part in national politics. Iowa introduced Barack Obama and voted bigly for Donald Trump. Is the condition leaning blue, crimson, or crimson in the lead-up to 2020? Is it a bellwether for America? A nostalgic mirage in the Music Guy, or a harbinger of America’s future? Cullen’s answer can be complicated and honest–but with optimism and the stubbornness that’s still the state’s, and his, dominant quality.