What I've been interested in, of course, is writing about America -- or, as I realized a few years after I began "U.S. Journal," in writing about America without an emphasis on politics and government. Some ways of doing that didn't suit my needs. I wasn't interested in doing what is sometimes called Americana -- stories about people like the last fellow in Jasper Country Georgia, who can whittle worth a damn. I didn't want to do stories about typical or representative Americans -- stories about, say, the struggles of a Midwestern Farm Family to make ends meet. Although I was interested in places, I wasn't comfortable writing about a city or a state or a region in general terms; I didn't do stories that could be called "Boston at Three Hundred" or "Is the New South Really New?" I went every three weeks not to a place but to a story -- to an event or a controversy or, now and then, a killing.
- Calvin Trillin, from the Introduction to the 2017 edition of
Killings, p.xiii
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