According to the U.S. novelist Ken Kesey, Canada has "never been considered" as a possible source of cultural significance, let alone enlightenment. In this series of essays Tom Wayman takes Kesey's offhand comment as a point of departure for an exploration of the undiscovered territory of Canadian culture.

Introduction: A Country Not Considered -- Laramie or Squamish: What Use Is Canadian Culture? -- A House Without Books: The Writer in Canadian Society -- Marty and Zieroth: Two Writers from Elsewhere -- Fighter in Amber: An Appreciation of Milton Acorn -- The Skin of the Earth: My Neruda -- An Aspirin as Big as the Sun: Poetry and Politics -- Visible Consequences, Invisible Jobs: Introduction to Paperwork -- Split Shift and After: Some Issues of the New Work Writing -- Sitting by the Grave of Literary Ambition: Where I am Now in My Writing.