The umpteen Martha Colliers in our world – trained in apple-picking, forced to plow the land as well… frustration and tedium lie far less in work to be done, for which we have never been more prepared, but this devious make-believe tack of expertise pretenders who gleefully thrive on our certain failure to deliver…. In Altgeld, our people have grown past expectations, compound misery being all they’ve known since the beginning of time… the sheroic Martha Collierses defying the odds against the grain and their own better thoughts – a grotesque contest between will and abject privation, amidst which the soul, brow-beaten and concussed, stands dazed at the crossroads craving reprieve which only death may bring –11/20/10By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.