The novel It Still Moves is filled with details and observations. Petrusich focuses on American music and culture to define Americana. She leaves Brooklyn, NY and goes to the south in search for answers to her questions about Americana. Her main strategy is observing. She observes many different cultures and compares it to her living in Brooklyn. Before she goes on the trip, she talks about Brooklyn in great details, enabling us to have a better understanding of what she is observing. I personally think that detailed books are more interesting because the reader can really picture what the author is writing about. This book is a great example of "reflect on what you observe".
Besides going into details, Pertusich asks many questions to find out why things are the way they are. Of course Americana is the main focus of her questions. She asks herself "How are our collective ideas about Americana changing? Where did they start? How are those notions preserved, celebrated, milked for profit? How do the places we come from influence the sounds we make? And, most important, how is Americana music transforming to accommodate the massive cultural and geographical shifts in the American landscape?" She asks those questions to make herself think after observing certain cultures. Questioning is one of the ways of learning, and that is what Petrusich uses in her studies.
Petrusich is also very respectful to the opinions and ideas of others. Her main task is to find the definition of Americana culture and she is able to do so because she has an open mind to everybody's opinions. At the same time, she has her own ideas, but she does not insist that the reader adopt them. On the contrary, she lets us create out own thoughts.
DZ
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