Daddy Long Legs-Midwest Connections

Daddy Long Legs: The Natural Education of a Father

 

“If David Sedaris and Annie Dillard had a literary love child and raised him in Iowa, he would write like this.” —The Iowan

“Like America’s best essayists-think E.B. White-John Price’s side-splitting stories about his family develop in their own time into heart-rending reflections on living and dying, and why living must be whole-hearted if it is to be anything at all, and why dying can be as beautiful as an emerging moth.” —Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort

John Price appears to have thrown in the towel. He has spent the last year struggling to support his family, neglecting to spend time with his wife and children, and becoming increasingly cynical about the degraded state of the natural world around him. After a heart-attack scare, however, his wife demands that he start appreciating all the “good things” in his life: their mouse-infested old house, their hopelessly overgrown yard, and most of all, the joys and humiliations of parenthood.In his quest to become a better father, Price faces many unexpected challenges-like understanding his grandmother’s decision to die, and supporting his nature-loving sons’ decision to make their home a “no-kill zone” for all living creatures. Still he finds the second chance he was looking for-to save himself and, perhaps, his small corner of an imperfect yet still beautiful world.

John T. Price is an award-winning teacher of creative writing and literature at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He earned a BA in religion, an MFA in nonfiction writing, and a PhD in English from the University of Iowa. He is the author of two memoirs: Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships (Merloyd Lawrence Books/Da Capo Press, 2008)-which won the 2009 Orion Magazine Readers’ Choice Award-and Not Just Any Land (University of Nebraska Press, 2004).

Theory of Remainders-Midwest Connections

Theory of Remainders

 Scott Carpenter will give a reading Tuesday, June 25, 7:30 pm.

“A rare and wondrous novel”  —Reader’s Favorite

“Theory of Remainders challenged me to examine words, to puzzle through conversations and scenes, to rely on the thought process rather than tangible evidence. That engagement of the reader sets this novel apart . . . For anyone who values a literary novel of substantial depth in character development, language, sense of place and reader engagement, Theory of Remainders ranks as a must-read.”

— Audrey Kletscher Helbling, Minnesota Prairie Roots.

“Carpenter creates an incredible sense of place as he evokes Normandy and its people. The writing, elegant and subtle, draws the reader into this thoroughly gripping tale.” — Tripp Ryder, President, Midwest Independent Booksellers Association

“Fully realized characters, a remarkable fluency of language, wit, and an extensive comprehension of French culture and history make this literary novel a stellar achievement.” — Kirkus Review (starred review)

At fifty-two, psychiatrist Philip Adler is divorced, alone, and gutted of passion. When a funeral draws him back to his ex-wife’s homeland of France, the trip reunites him with a trauma he has struggled to forget: the brutal death of his teenage daughter fifteen years earlier. Prodded by his former brother-in-law and stirred by the unspent embers of his marriage, he embarks on a mission to resolve lingering questions about this past, hoping to heal himself along the way. The search leads to a disturbed man who may hold more answers than anyone expects—if only Philip can hear what he’s trying to say.

A suspenseful literary novel set in the lush backgrounds of Normandy, Theory of Remainders explores the secret ties between love, trauma, and language.

 

Scott Dominic Carpenter teaches French literature and critical theory at Carleton College (MN), where he has written extensively on the representation of madness in the novel, political allegory, and literary hoaxes. His fiction has appeared in such journals as Chamber Four, Ducts, Midwestern Gothic, The MacGuffin, Prime Number and Spilling Ink. A Pushcart Prize nominee and a semi-finalist for the MVP competition at New Rivers Press, his first collection of stories, This Jealous Earth (MG Press) is also available.

Jewelweed-Midwest Connections

Jewelweed

“With Jewelweed, David Rhodes has once more produced a moving, deeply thoughtful novel, of poor people doing difficult things often against their best interests in a little town in the upper Midwest. He is the same writer, maybe better, as the author of Driftless. A lovely book.” —Paul Ingram, Prairie Lights Bookstore (Iowa City, IA)

“A benevolent sort of rural American magical realism . . . profound.” —Publishers Weekly

“David Rhodes takes seemingly mundane events, and makes them magic. The glimpses into the everyday made spectacular through his telling, and his ability to let you see the world through another set of eyes. He truly gets you into his characters, and leaves you feeling like you’ve got a new set of friends looking out for you. Jewelweed has been my first foray into his writing, but will certainly not be my last.” —Jack Hannert, Brilliant Books, Traverse City, MI

When David Rhodes burst onto the American literary scene in the ’70s, he was hailed as “a brilliant visionary” (John Gardner). In Driftless, his “most accomplished work yet” (Joseph Kanon), Rhodes made Words, Wisconsin, resonate with readers across the country.

Now with Jewelweed this beloved author returns to the same out-of-the-way community and introduces a cast of characters who must overcome the burdens left by the past. After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester is paroled. As Blake attempts to adjust, he reconnects with Danielle Workhouse, a single mother whose son, Ivan, explores the woods with his precocious friend, August. While Danielle goes to work for Buck and Amy Roebuck in their mansion, Ivan and August befriend Lester Mortal, a recluse who lives in a melon field; a wild boy; and a bat, Milton. These characters — each flawed, deeply human, and ultimately universal — approach the future with a combination of hope and trepidation. Jewelweed offers a vision in which the ordinary becomes mythical, the seemingly mundane transformed into revelatory beauty.

 

David Rhodes grew up near Des Moines where he attended a Quaker School. He dropped out of Beloit College in the 60′s and eventually graduated from Marlboro College in Vermont. After receiving an MFA in Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in rapid succession to acclaim: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (Atlantic/Little, Brown, 1972), The Easter House (Harper & Row, 1974), and Rock Island Line (Harper & Row, 1975). A motorcycle accident in 1976 left him paralyzed from the chest down. He continued writing, but did not publish again until 2008 when his novel, Driftless, was published. It received a Milkweed National Fiction prize, was read on Wisconsin Public Radio, and was chosen as an All Iowa Reads selection. Milkweed has reissued all of his previous books. He currently lives with his wife, Edna, in Wisconsin.

 

Sleeping in Eden-Midwest Connections

A novel by Nicole Baart

“Ripe with complex emotion and vivid prose . . . this story sticks around long after the last page is turned.” — Publisher’s Weekly on Sleeping in Eden

“Sleeping in Eden mesmerized me from the first heart-stopping page. Nicole Baart draws her characters beautifully while crafting a plot that kept me up all night. A highly emotional and gripping read.” —Anita Hughes, author of Monarch Beach

“Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. Sleeping in Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful.” – William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author

The lives of a middle-aged doctor and a love-struck young woman intersect across time in Sleeping in Eden, Nicole Baart’s haunting novel about love, jealousy, and the boundaries between loyalty and truth.She knew what he wrote . . .One little word that made her feel both cheated and beloved.One word that changed everything.MINE.On a chilly morning in the Northwest Iowa town of Blackhawk, Dr. Lucas Hudson is filling in for the vacationing coroner on a seemingly open-and-shut suicide case. His own life is crumbling around him, but when he unearths the body of a woman buried in the barn floor beneath the hanging corpse, he realizes this terrible discovery could change everything. . . .Years before Lucas ever set foot in Blackhawk, Meg Painter met Dylan Reid. It was the summer before high school and the two quickly became inseparable. Although Meg’s older neighbor, Jess, was the safe choice, she couldn’t let go of Dylan no matter how hard she tried.Caught in a web of jealousy and deceit that spiraled out of control, Meg’s choices in the past ultimately collide with Lucas’s discovery in the present, weaving together a taut story of unspoken secrets and the raw, complex passions of innocence lost.

 

Nicole Baart was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. She and her husband have three young sons. After the adoption of their infant son, Nicole discovered a deep passion for global issues and co-founded a nonprofit organization, One Body One Hope, that works alongside a church and orphanage in Monrovia, Liberia. Nicole was the coauthor of Glenn Beck’s bestselling Christmas novel, The Snow Angel.

Benjamin Percy Book Release Party May 20

Ben Percy will read from his new novel, Red Moon, Monday, May 20, 7:30 pm at the Rueb ‘N’ Stein. The Counterfactuals will play a set prior to the reading. Refreshments will be served. This is certain to be one of the coolest events in which I’ve been involved.

In addition to the Red Moon, Ben is the author of two short story collections, The Language of Elk and Refresh, Refresh, a graphic novel based on the short story Refresh, Refresh, as well as the novel, The Wilding.

 

Interview with Ben

Sinners and the Sea-Midwest Connections

A novel by Rebecca Kanner. 

“Kanner animates a harsh, almost dystopic world of fallen people struggling to survive. Noah’s unnamed wife is a powerful, memorable character.”
— Publisher’s Weekly on Sinners and the Sea

“Kanner successfully undertakes a formidable task retelling a familiar religious story through the eyes of Noah’s wife. The narrative’s well-articulated, evenly balanced, and stimulating—but it’s definitely not the familiar tale that’s so frequently illustrated in children’s books.”
— Kirkus Reviews on Sinners and the Sea

“Sinners and the Sea is a rare find—a bold and vivid journey into the antediluvian world of Noah. Kanner’s is a fresh, irresistible story about the unnamed woman behind the famous ark-builder. Compelling and masterfully written.”
— Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Books of Mortals series

Cursed with a birthmark that many think is the brand of a demon, the young heroine in The Sinners and the Sea is deprived even of a name for fear that it would make it easier for people to spread lies about her. But this virtuous woman has the perfect voice to make one of the Old Testament’s stories live anew.

Desperate to keep her safe, the woman’s father gives her to the righteous Noah, who weds her and takes her to the town of Sorum, a land of outcasts. Noah, a 600-year-old paragon of virtue, rises to the role of preacher to a town full of sinners. Alone in her new life, Noah’s wife gives him three sons, but is faced with the hardship of living with an aloof husband who speaks more to God than with her. She tries to make friends with the violent and dissolute people of Sorum while raising a brood that, despite a pious upbringing, have developed some sinful tendencies of their own. But her trials are nothing compared to what awaits her after God tells her husband that a flood is coming—and that Noah and his family must build an ark so that they alone can repopulate the world.

Kanner weaves a masterful tale that breathes new life into one of the Bible’s voiceless characters. Through the eyes of Noah’s wife we see a complex world where the lines between righteousness and wickedness blur. And we are left wondering: Would I have been considered virtuous enough to save?

Orphan Train-Midwest Connections

 

“I was so moved by this book. I loved Molly and Vivian, two brave, difficult, true-hearted women who disrupt one another’s lives in beautiful ways, and loved journeying with them, through heartbreak and stretches of history I’d never known existed, out of loneliness toward family and home.” –Marisa de los Santos, New York Times-bestselling author of Belong to Me and Falling Together

“I loved this book: its absorbing back-and-forth story, its vivid history, its eminently loveable characters. ORPHAN TRAIN wrecked my heart and made me glad to be literate.” –Monica Wood, author of When We Were the Kennedys

“Christina Baker Kline writes exquisitely about two unlikely friends . . . each struggling to transcend a past of isolation and hardship. ORPHAN TRAIN will hold you in its grip as their fascinating tales unfold.” –Cathy Marie Buchanan, New York Times-bestselling author of The Painted Girls

Detailed and beautifully drawn, Orphan Train illuminates a little-known part of America’s history:  Between 1854 and 1929, so-called “orphan trains” transported more than 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, and homeless children between the ages of 2 and 14 from the East Coast to the Midwest for foster care and adoption. But their treatment often amounted to indentured servitude. Chosen first were infants, for more traditional adoptions, and older boys, for their manual labor; adolescent girls were typically selected last. While some children quickly found love and acceptance, many walked a harder road.

Orphan Train is set in modern-day Maine and early twentieth-century Minnesota.  Kline spends every summer on the coast of Maine and has built a large fan base in the area.  She has also spent 25 years traveling to Minnesota where her husband’s family lives, and has strong ties to the orphan-train riders’ community in the state.

Christina Baker Kline is the author of five novels, including Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be. Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University from 2007-2011, Kline is a recent recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship and several research fellowships (to Ireland and Minnesota), and has been a Writer-in-Residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives with husband and three sons in Montclair, New Jersey, and spends as much time as possible in northern Minnesota and on the coast of Maine, where she grew up.