So Who *Was* Grant Wood, Really? Not The Yokel In Overalls He Wanted Us To Think He Was

“We should fear Grant Wood,” noted art critic Gertrude Stein once wrote. “Every artist and every school of artists should be afraid of him, for his devastating satire.” Novelist Jane Smiley travels to the places in Iowa where the painter of American Gothic (and much more) lived and worked – and writes about some of the things Wood wanted to hide.