Somewhere, In Between is a book for people who want to explore and think and enjoy a good story. Inspired by the people and places along the banks of the Mighty Mississippi between Cairo, Illinois, and New Orleans, the compelling photographs and essays contained within are further inspired by a curiosity about land and life and the all-encompassing tides of time and change, chaos and order in which we all live, suspended in reflection and projection, no matter where we call home.

As shown in these pages, the Lower Mississippi River Valley is a place of great beauty and a unique, exotic culture. This is the southern end of the Heartland of America and the birthplace of the blues, America’s most unique form of musical expression. That said, folks don’t call it the blues for nothing: The Valley is also a complicated place with a dark history, where the legacy of slavery and conquest continues to unwind even to this day and where the effects of poverty and hardship are readily evident. It is a world in transition between a storied past and an uncertain future.

Like the author’s Sin Sombras/Without Shadows, Somewhere, In Between is a search not only for meaning and cohesion amidst the certain uncertainty of daily life, but the ultimate experience at the end of the book: the Rapture—awe of almost unbearable intensity, possible only when one is simultaneously aware of both the horror and magnificence of creation. As the Mississippi River flows in between the East and West Coasts of the United States, so, too, do we strive to live in balance between the world as it is and the way we wish it was and between the reality of who we are versus who we would like to be.