In this study of space and place, Sally Bayley examines the meaning of ‘home’ in American literature and culture. Moving from the nineteenth-century homestead of Emily Dickinson to the present-day reality of Bob Dylan, Bayley investigates the relationship of the domestic frontier to the wide-open spaces of the American outdoors. In contemporary America, she argues, the experience of home is increasingly isolated, leading to unsettling moments of domestic fallout.&ltBR> At the centre of the book is the exposed and often shifting domain of the domestic threshold: Emily Dickinson’s doorstep, Edward Hopper’s doors and windows, and Harper Lee’s front porch. Bayley tracks these historically fragile territories through contemporary literature and film, including Cormac McCarthy’s &ltI>No Country For Old Men&lt/I>, Lars Von Trier’s &ltI>Dogville&lt/I>, and Andrew Dominik’s &ltI>The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford&lt/I> - works that explore local, domestic territories as emblems of nation. The culturally potent sites of the american home - the hearth, porch, backyard, front lawn, bathroom, and basement - are positioned in relation to the more conflicted sites of the American motel and hotel.