What’s still the matter with Kansas?

Kansas has its own brand of hazards. Bad weather can destroy a farmer’s entire seasonal income. Fundamentalist Christians roam the streets, vehemently trying to bring people to Jesus. Religious, political or sexual tolerance isn’t much tolerated. In Bleeding Kansas (Putnam, $25.95), Sara Paretsky drags all of the troubles of her native state out into the open. It’s a step in a different direction for Paretsky, who, with 2006’s memoir Writing in an Age of Silence, has now published two books in a row that don’t star her famed detective.

“V.I. Warshawski really represents more of my attitude, my kind of take on the world,” she says over the phone from her Hyde Park office. “In Bleeding Kansas, there isn’t one single character that reflects that.”

Set in present-day Douglas County, Kansas, the book brings the state’s bloody history to the fore. Most of the main characters can trace their family lineage back to either the politically and religiously conservative Schapens or the more liberally minded Grelliers. The families clashed during Civil War times, and again in the 1970s over the Vietnam War. Now they’re at odds once more over the Iraq War. When Gina Haring, an unwelcome urban stranger, moves into the nearby, nearly dilapidated Fremantle house, the liberal lady sets the old family rivalries aflame. As the Schapens do their best to make Gina’s life a living hell by spreading rumors both on- and offline, Jim and Susan Grellier find themselves drawn to her.

“In the country, it’s a mix of spying on each other and worrying who’s getting ahead and who has an edge,” says the 60-year-old Paretsky. “But, at the same time, it’s a really tightly connected community.”

Paretsky targets some of our country’s fiercest cultural undercurrents as they play out in Kansas. After Susan joins Gina’s antiwar group and her Wiccan religious ceremonies, Susan’s 19-year-old son, Chip, endures the brunt of never-ending gossip about his mother. Frustrated and sick of the small town, Chip disappears only to resurface as a soldier shipped out to Iraq. Things get surreal when Arnie Schapen discovers that one of his cows has birthed a supposed miracle calf, the “Perfect Red Heifer” that allegedly foretells the rising of the Temple of Israel. Orthodox Jews from a yeshiva in Kansas City come to inspect the animal, and reporters soon fly in from all over the country and videos flood YouTube.

Paretsky hits fundamentalists—and particularly the Christian right—remarkably hard, but first she gets to know them. Her characters are so believable and human that even the most liberal readers might find themselves sympathizing. But at times Paretsky travels so far into the brains of the conservative-minded that the more politically progressive characters—like the lesbian Wiccan or the raucous feminist drunk—end up shoved aside. Perhaps that’s Paretsky’s way of saying “that’s Kansas for you.” But if Kansas is a bellwether for national attitudes, Paretsky feels optimistic about the future.

“In the last election, Kansans voted out a lot of the most extreme candidates in the state office,” she says. “I hope it’s a sign that the country is ready to stop being quite so obsessed with Bible fundamentalism as a way of running the government. But we will see.”

Paretsky reads from Bleeding Kansas Monday 7.