MEN IN AMERICA by Thomas Frederick...

MEN IN AMERICA by Thomas Frederick Arndt (100 pp.) and IN SEARCH OF THE CORN QUEEN by Greta Pratt (96 pp.) (D.A.P./ National Museum of American Art: $27.50 each; paperback originals). These handsome volumes initiate a series documenting the look of contemporary America. Greta Pratt focuses on carnivals and fairs in flyspeck Midwestern towns, celebrations of a rural life that is vanishing as the proprietors of family farms leave the countryside for urban centers. As Garrison Keillor notes, Thomas Arndt “tends to work on the wrong side of town among the wrong sort of people, the mouth breathers and bus riders, the working stiffs. . . .” His photographs reveal the loneliness many American males experience, even in groups. A timeless quality marks his work: Some of these photos could have been taken last week--or 25 years ago.