Standstill takes us on a journey through Ohio's two-thousand-year-old Hopewell Earthworks, which include the largest geometric earthworks in the world. But these are also the landscapes of a writer who lives in the present. Rice's evocative stories show us art that has saved lives--sometimes hundreds of lives--and a social history of those who literally have lost their power of speech. These are scenes that affirm the best that is in us and the persistence of beauty, which he says is stronger than we think and outlives us all.