Northern Exposure is about growing up in rural Canada and the Dakotas during World War II and the '50s. It's written from the viewpoint of a boy who is interested in all angles of life and death. Publisher and writer Gordon Burgett describes it as follows, "This is a super book, full of humor and truths and a slice of a time that seems almost medieval if it hadn't actually happened to most of our grandparents and their parents. Lu has brought it so alive you can almost feel and smell it "