“Farming is still, as it has always been the lifeblood of Fayette County and by extension, of Iowa.” 

If small farms are no longer needed in Iowa, those who depend on their farms to survive will have few options. Meth cooking has proven to be a viable—if inordinately risky and destructive—industry in Iowa and Missouri. It will always be an option for desperate farmers if their financial worries outweigh their distaste for the drug trade. 

“To look at them, leaning against the counter in the tiny kitchen, is to understand the connection between farming, itself an act of blind faith, and religion. If you can believe in a year’s worth or corn or beans, it seems, you can believe in anything.” 

Faith is a belief in things that are unseen. Farmers plant seeds with the expectation that they will become productive crops, which is an act of faith. Ironically, the meth trade becomes a staple of the economy, despite its withering effects. Meth is almost anti-faith, in that it strips away other forms of meaning in peoples’ lives, and makes them unlikely to believe in better futures for themselves. 

“I went from totally apathetic to totally gung-ho in about a week. We were going to fix this place. I really believed that. In some ways, I almost still do.” 

Nathan talks about Murphy approaching him in 2005 to help clean up Oelwein. From this early stage in the book, Reding foreshadows the lack of a happy ending for Oelwein. By the time he interviews Nathan, he has far less hope for Oelwein’s ability to thrive. His words are more pessimistic than his actions, however. By the end of the book, Nathan is contemplating a future term as mayor, which would give him the freedom to explore his own methods of improving Oelwein.