A Primer for Buford is her longest book and it speaks with urgent memory in what American Book Review has called her "scraped-clean language." The urgency is due to McDaniel's realization that the number of people who can remember the Okie experience and the life it lead to is dwindling rapidly. The book takes the shape of a poetry primer for a young man who needs to learn about his own heritage. Luckily the rest of us get to listen in.