Moorhead, Minn., Dec. 6, 2011 – The Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County will hold a book reading and signing for the third edition of “How Fargo You: Stories from the Northern Prairie that People Who Haven’t Been Here Will Never Believe” with author Marc de Celle on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 6 p.m. at the Hjemkomst Center. The event is free and open to the public.
“The third edition is really aimed at going out beyond Fargo—I want it to go national. I wrote a new preface that gets right to the point of what the implications are of the book,” de Celle said. “To take this to other places besides Fargo, I wrote some ‘dust jacket notes,’ focusing on the worst financial crisis of the last seventy years and how it hardly affected North Dakota.”
De Celle, a native of Arizona, moved to Fargo in 2005 after a visit in the summer of 2001. As soon as the opportunity was there for his family to move to Fargo, they did. They had no idea how deep—what de Celle has come to call “Northern Prairie Culture”—went. He says the past six years have been an amazing learning experience.
“If you value relationships and community over money and power, you’re going to avoid a tremendous amount of pain in the long run. Fargo has had one of the lowest unemployment rates in America, and that’s just because this culture of ‘looking out for one another’ is pervasive. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve experienced in my life. It’s a real life example of how life can work and how virtue can pay off over the long run,” de Celle said.
How Fargo of You is currently for sale in the Hjemkomst Center Heritage Gift Shop and will be available for purchase at the event.
