The ghosts of Nebraska were drawn from my many sojourns into the small-town streets I'd grown up on. My family, Dylan, Woody, Hank, the American gothic short-stories of Flannery O'Connor, the noir novels of James M. Cain, the quiet violence of the films of Terrence Malick and the decayed fable of director Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter all guided my imagination.