Where Great Writing Begins

I OWA where great writing begins

fall 2013 Recently= published by the University of Iowa Press

Michelle Herman

coming of age in a theatre of black and white Coming Close Forty Essays on Philip Levine

S t o r i e s We Tell Ourselves AiShA SAbAtini SloAn

“dream life” and “seeing things”

edited by mari l’esperance & tomÁs q. morÍn

literature $21.00 dogmatic manner, as one speaks, to himself, but of “J. C. Hallman’s cogent and imaginative “J. C. Hallman, with wit and wisdom, maps W

course you will use it merely as a mass to react against musing on this fertile, conflicted, and bril- the now flashing, now somber streams of m

in your own way, so that it may serve you some good liant literary correspondence . . . is rich in thought coursing through the correspon- &

purpose.” He believed he was doing H’ry a service detail and important for our understanding dence of the James brothers, two of the un- H’ry Readers generally know only one as he criticized a growing tendency toward “over- of both William and Henry James.” disputed geniuses in American letters. . . . In m of the two famous James brothers. Literary types refinement” or “curliness” of style. “I think it ought —John J. McDermott, general editor, Hallman’s able hands, Wm and H’ry come W & H’ry know Henry James; psychologists, philosophers, and to be of use to you,” he wrote in 1872, “to have any The Correspondence of William James dazzlingly alive as well-seasoned guides religion scholars know William James. In reality, the

detailed criticism fm even a wrong judge, and you through the depths and shoals of the writ- william Literature, between the Letters Love, and brothers’ minds were inseparable, as the more than don’t get much fm any one else.” For the most part, “J. C. Hallman’s Wm & H’ry is an insightful, ing life and of everyday living.” eight hundred letters they wrote to each other re- H’ry agreed. “I hope you will continue to give me, thorough analysis of Henry and William —Eric G. Wilson, author, My Business Is veal. In this book, J. C. Hallman mines the letters for when you can, your free impression of my perfor- James’s letters, a delightfully intelligent and to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing and Every- mutual affection and influence, painting a moving mance. It is a great thing to have some one write to intimate study of their work, mutual influ- one Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We portrait of a relationshipTHE between twoMESSENGER extraordinary one of one’s things as if one were a 3d person & you ence, and the profound impact of the mas- Can’t Look Away & men. Deeply intimate, sometimes antagonistic, rife are the only individual who will do this.” ters’ legacy through these self-portraits.” henry james with wit, and on the cutting edge of art and science, —Hélène Cardona, actor, James scholar, the letters portray the brothers’ relationship and j. c. hallman is the author of several books, and author, Dreaming My Animal Selves measure the manner in which their dialogue helped including The Chess Artist, The Devil Is a Gentleman, shape, through the influence of their literary and The Hospital for Bad Poets, and In Utopia. “The relationship of brothers William and intellectual output, the philosophy, science, and lit- Henry James is one of the great mysteries Literature, Love, and the Letters between erature of the century that followed. Sweet Will of American literature. Short of reading william & henry james William and Henry James served as each other’s

Philip Levine the dozens of volumes of their correspon- Muse muse and critic. For instance, the event of the death dence, there was little hope of understand- Books j.hallman c. by of Mrs. Sands illustrates what H’ry never stated: even catherine michele adams The Iowa Series in Creativity & j. c. hallman ing it. J. C. Hallman has read all of them, Writing if the “matter” of his fiction was light, the minds and has distilled and illuminated their ex- behind it lived and died as though it was very heavy Robert D. changes in this insightful and suspenseful UniversityRichardson, of Iowa Press indeed. He seemed to best understand this himself story-essay. The work of William James is www.uiowapress.orgseries editor only after Wm fully fleshed out his system. “I can’t having a critical renaissance in our post- now explainStephanie save by the very Pippin fact of the spell itself . . . Freudian, post-Jungian, postmodern age, that [Pragmatism] cast upon me,” H’ry wrote in 1907. and it is breathtaking to read here how the “All my life I have . . . unconsciously pragmatised.” modern novel and postmodern philosophy Wm was never able to be quite so gracious in were shaped in the James crucible.” return. In 1868, he lashed out at the “every day” Jacket photo of Henry and William James at Lamb House (call number Hollis 008734407) is from a family album within the collections of Modern —Andrei Codrescu, author, So Recently elements of two of H’ry’s early stories, and then Books and Manuscripts Dept., Houghton Library, Harvard University. Rent a World: New and Selected Poems iowa explained: “I have uttered this long rigmarole in a

iowa poetry prize

I OWA where great writing begins The University of Iowa Press is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative and is committed to preserving natural resources. This catalog is printed on fsc-certified paper.

contents index by subject Fall 2013 Titles 1–23 Art 4–5 Gardening 18 Poetry 4–6 New in Paper 20 Business 21 History 13, 16–17 Popular Culture 1 New Regional & Iowa Titles Essays 7 Iowa / Regional 13, 16–20 Rhetoric 22 13, 16-20 Environment 15 Literary Criticism 22–23 Sports 3 Order Form 24 Fan Studies 1 Literature 10 True Crime 2 Sales Information 25 Fiction 8–9 Memoir 12, 14 Writing 11 Food 12 Nature 19–20

www.uiowapress.org | buroakblog.blogspot.com Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls by Katherine Larsen and Lynn S. Zubernis

“Being a fan isn’t hard. Getting inside a fandom, exploring every nook and cranny of a show, doing smart interviews with the top talent, keeping your perspective AND your sense of humor? Now that is really freakin’ hard. Kathy and Lynn are the best possible guides anyone could have through the many worlds of Supernatural fandom. As writers, tour guides, and com- panions, they kick it in the ass in every possible way. This is a terrific and engaging read.”—Maureen Ryan, television critic, Huffington Post

Once upon a time not long ago, two responsible college professors, Lynn the psychologist and Kathy the literary scholar, fell in love with the television show Supernatural and turned their oh-so- practical lives upside down. Plunging headlong into the hidden realms of fandom, they scoured the Internet for pictures of stars Jensen Ack- les and Jared Padalecki and secretly penned racy fan fiction. And then “Take a trip on the rollercoaster ride that they hit the road—crisscrossing the country, racking up frequent is the Supernatural fandom as Kathy and flyer miles with alarming ease, standing in convention lines at 4 a.m. Lynn combine their own fannish passion They had white-knuckled encounters with overly zealous security with astute academic insights into what it guards one year and smiling invitations to the Supernatural set the next. is to be a fan. Combining an emotionally Actors stripping in their trailers, fangirls sneaking onto film sets; honest account of their own experiences drunken confessions, squeals of joy, tears of despair; wallets emptied with interviews with the cast and showrun- and responsibilities left behind; intrigue and ecstasy and crushing ners on fandom, it’s a book no fan should disappointment—it’s all here. miss.”—Jules Wilkinson, administrator of And yet even as they reveled in their fandom, the authors were the SuperWiki asking themselves whether it’s okay to be a fan, especially for grown women with careers and kids. “Crazystalkerchicks”—that’s what they “Fangasm takes you on a wild and brave heard from Supernatural crew members, security guards, airport im- journey into the deep realm of fandom. It’s migration officials, even sometimes their fellow fans. But what Kathy a no-holds-barred true tale of community, and Lynn found was that most fans were very much like themselves: passion, and creativity, where the fans smart, capable women looking for something of their own that en- are the real stars of the story. An honest, gages their brains and their libidos. insightful, and often surprising exploration Fangasm pulls back the curtain on the secret worlds of fans and into the world of fandom, Fangasm breaks famous alike, revealing Supernatural behind the scenes and discover- down barriers and reminds us just how ing just how much the cast and crew know about what the fans are vital fans are to the success of any creative up to. Anyone who’s been tempted to throw off the constraints of work. It resonates with the fangirl or fan- respectability and indulge a secret passion—or hit the road with a boy in all of us.”—Tony Zierra, director, best friend—will want to come along. and Elizabeth Yoffe, producer, My Big Break

Lynn S. Zubernis is associate professor of counselor education at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She is also area chair for stardom and fandom for the Southwest Popular Culture Association. Katherine Larsen teaches at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and is the area chair for fan theory and culture for the Popular Culture Association. Larsen and Zubernis are principal and associate editors of the Journal of Fandom Studies. Together, they have authored Fandom at the Crossroads: Celebration, Shame, and Fan/Producer Relationships and edited Fan Culture: Theory/Practice and Fan Phenomena: “Supernatural.” They aren’t telling the names under which they write fan fiction. october 246 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 22 b&w photos $19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-198-1 $19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-215-5 popular culture / fan studies

www.uiowapress.org 1 ———————— Skull in the Ashes ———————— •————— • Murder, a Gold Rush Manhunt, and the Birth of Circumstantial Evidence in America by Peter Kaufman   in the

“Not a perfect crime, but a perfect page-turner by a skilled storyteller.” ————— —Lester V. Horwitz, author, The Longest Raid of the Civil War —————MURDER, A GOLD RUSH MANHUNT, AND THE BIRTH OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL On a February night in 1897, the general store in Walford, EVIDENCE IN AMERICA —–

Iowa, burned down. The next morning, townspeople discovered a ————— charred corpse in the ashes. Everyone knew that the store’s owner,

Frank Novak, had been sleeping in the store as a safeguard against —————

—————PETER KAUFMAN

• burglars. Now all that remained were a few of his personal items    • scattered under the body. At first, it seemed to be a tragic accident mitigated just a bit by No- vak’s foresight in buying generous life insurance policies to provide “Peter Kaufman has pulled off an impres- for his family. But soon an investigation by the ambitious new county sive piece of historical detective work, attorney, M. J. Tobin, turned up evidence suggesting that the dead digging deep into the archives to uncover a man might actually be Edward Murray, a hard-drinking local laborer. remarkable murder mystery and sleuthing Relying upon newly developed forensic techniques, Tobin gradually adventure that stretches from Iowa to the built a case implicating Novak in Murray’s murder. But all he had was Klondike and back. The captivating story circumstantial evidence, and up to that time few murder convictions opens a window on American life in the had been won on that basis in the United States. beguiling 1890s.”—Robert Loerzel, author, Others besides Tobin were interested in the case, including several Alchemy of Bones: Chicago’s Luetgert Murder companies that had sold Novak life insurance policies. One agency Case of 1897 hired detectives to track down every clue regarding the suspect’s whereabouts. Newspapers across the country ran sensational head- “From Iowa to the Klondike and back again, lines with melodramatic coverage of the manhunt. Veteran detective Peter Kaufman scatters clues as he draws Red Perrin’s determined trek over icy mountain paths and dangerous upon the actual words of dogged report- river rapids to the raw Yukon Territory town of Dawson City, which ers and legal aces, a crack detective and was booming with prospectors as the Klondike gold rush began, a parade of witnesses. Just as the chain of made for especially good copy. events packed a courtroom a century ago, Skull in the Ashes traces the actions of Novak, Tobin, and Perrin, this real-life crime story will enthrall readers showing how the Walford fire played a pivotal role in each man’s today.”—Ginalie Swaim, State Historical life. Along the way, author Peter Kaufman gives readers a fascinating Society of Iowa glimpse into forensics, detective work, trial strategies, and prison life at the close of the nineteenth century. As much as it is a chilling tale of a cold-blooded murder and its aftermath, this is also the story of three ambitious young men and their struggle to succeed in a rapidly modernizing world.

Peter Kaufman is the author of the novel Barometer’s Shadow. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

september 298 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 15 b&w photos $19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-188-2 $19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-213-1 true crime

2 university of iowa press . fall 2013 The Ghosts of NASCAR The Harlan Boys and the First Daytona 500 by John Havick

Who won the first Daytona 500? Fans still debate whether it was midwestern champion Johnny Beauchamp, declared the victor Harlan Boys at the finish line, or longtime NASCAR driver Lee Petty, declared the an th official winner a few days after the race.The Ghosts of NASCAR puts First Daytona 500 JOHN HAVICK the controversial finish under a microscope. Author John Havick interviewed scores of people, analyzed film of the race, and pored over newspaper accounts of the event. He uses this information and his deep knowledge of the sport as it worked then to determine what probably happened. But he also tells a much bigger story: the story of how Johnny Beauchamp—and his Harlan, Iowa, compatriots, mechanic Dale Swanson and driver Tiny Lund—ended up in Florida driving in the 1959 Daytona race. The Ghosts of NASCAR details how the Harlan Boys turned to racing “Dale Swanson was a top race mechanic, cars to have fun and to escape the limited opportunities for poor boys careful and creative. Tiny Lund was a good, in rural southwestern Iowa. As auto racing became more popular ferocious competitor, particularly on dirt and better organized in the 1950s, Swanson, Lund, and Beauchamp tracks, and Johnny Beauchamp in fewer battled dozens of rivals and came to dominate the sport in the Mid- than thirty races proved he could race and west. By the later part of the decade, the three men were ready to take win against the top NASCAR drivers. This on the competition in the South’s growing NASCAR circuit. One of book describes how these three learned to the top mechanics of the day, Swanson literally wrote the book on race compete on midwestern tracks. . . . It is a cars at Chevrolet’s clandestine racing shop in Atlanta, Georgia, while story not to be missed.”—Rex White, 1960 Beauchamp and Lund proved themselves worthy competitors. It all NASCAR Grand National Champion came to a head on the brand-new Daytona track in 1959. The Harlan Boys’ long careers and midwestern racing in general “A detailed account of stock car racing’s have largely faded from memory. The Ghosts of NASCAR recaptures overlooked pre-TV days, a simpler era when it all: how they negotiated the corners on dirt tracks and passed or a big-hearted, lead-footed, small-town spun out their opponents; how officials tore down cars after races midwestern boy could reach NASCAR’s top to make sure they conformed to track rules; the mix of violence and tiers. This is more than an investigation of camaraderie among fierce competitors; and the struggles to organize the controversial first Daytona 500. It’s the and regulate the sport. One of very few accounts of 1950s midwestern story of the sport’s coming of age.” stock car racing, The Ghosts of NASCAR is told by a man who was there —Neal Thompson, author, Driving with during the sport’s earliest days. the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR When John Havick’s grandfather sold his car to local boy and aspiring racecar driver Johnny Beauchamp, the young Havick went to see how “John Havick has written an important, in- the car performed. Falling in love with the sport, he kept scrapbooks formative account of the early days of racing of newspaper articles and programs tracking the triumphs and de- in the Midwest. He focuses on the life and feats of Beauchamp, Tiny Lund, and many other successful racers times of Iowan Johnny Beauchamp, the from the town of Harlan, Iowa. Then he went away to high school Ghost of Playland Park, the declared victor and college, leaving his childhood hobby behind but never forget- of the very first Daytona 500—until NASCAR ting it. After a career teaching public policy at the Georgia Institute czar Bill France and racing legend Lee Petty of Technology, he revived his interest in the sport and decided to conspired to cheat him out of his victory. The tackle one of its longtime controversies: who really won the inaugural Ghosts of NASCAR is a winner.” Daytona 500 in 1959? The result of years of research and scores of —Peter Golenbock, author, American Zoom, interviews, this book tells the whole story. John Havick lives in Stone The Last Lap, and NASCAR Confidential Mountain, Georgia. october 226 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 20 b&w photos . 1 map $19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-197-4 $19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-211-7 sports

www.uiowapress.org 3 Lost and by Jeff Griffin Kuhl House Poets Mark Levine, series editor

Lost and

jeff griffin “Jeff Griffin scours the deserts of California and Nevada for artifacts— poems, photos, letters—discarded by lost souls who live in desolation. With Lost and, he arranges these sad, exhilarating, heavy voices into a stunning chorus, and he makes poetry out of pain. I’ve never read any- thing like Lost and. This is a wildly ingenious debut collection from an artist who has found a way to turn damaged lives into objects of wonder and beauty.”—Don Waters, author, Desert Gothic

Ever since he was a child sitting in the back of his parents’ car, “In Lost and, Jeff Griffin offers found objects— Jeff Griffin has been taking explorative journeys into the desert. In mysteriously discarded photographs, notes, 2007, as an art student, he started wandering the back roads of the letters, and poems, often damaged and Mojave Desert with the purpose of looking for a place to reflect in the barely legible—that document the lives of harshly beautiful surroundings. What he found were widely scattered people living in the deserts of the American postmodern ruins—abandoned trailers and campers and improvised West. With these documents, through which structures—whose vanished occupants had left behind, in their trash, we feel the mysterious and fragmentary na- an archaeological record of astonishing richness and poignancy. ture of the way lives are lived and forgotten, Lost and is both a chronicle of Griffin’s obsessive journeying and Griffin creates a physical and psychological a portal into a world of dispossessed people and enduring desires. landscape that is suffused with a powerful Comprised entirely of unaltered reproductions of extraordinary found sense of the Uncanny. This book is a col- materials—drawings, charts, questionnaires, compulsively detailed lage more strange and disturbing than the letters, legal documents, jottings, journal entries, stunningly vivid strangest work of the surrealists. Its cumula- and mysterious photographs—this is a work of sociological and liter- tive effect is mysterious, often humorous, ary daring that defies categorization. Part documentary history, part and ultimately heartbreaking—but never literary adventure, part mystical detective story, Griffin’s immersion patronizing. Lost and is a riveting book of in extremity has yielded wrenching annals of the modes and manners poetry—it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to in which lost people inscribe their psychic, sexual, religious, and say that it verges on the miraculous.” economic yearnings. —Geoffrey Nutter, author, Christopher Sunset At the core of the work is a collection of poems, mostly handwritten and composed without pretense to literary sophistication, “The reality of Lost and is distressing, discom- that give direct expression to the abiding impulse to tap language’s forting, extraordinarily private, hauntingly transformative potential. Assembled with deep regard for the dig- familiar, and deeply moving. Its voices cut nity of its collective group of anonymous authors, Lost and is a book to the root of the poetic impulse: the need of profound conceptual originality—an engrossing, shocking, and to write ourselves into the world, the risk we tender work of art that strives to awaken voices from the wilderness take in every attempt to record the facts of of the inexpressible. our existence, and our hope that someone is listening.”—Jonathan Thirkield, author, Jeff Griffin is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an associ- The Waker’s Corridor ate at Griffin Moss Industries, Inc., and he operates the publishing house Slim Princess Holdings. He lives around Nevada.

october 170 pages . 6 1/8 x 8 inches . 1 drawing 31 color photos . 2 b&w photos $20.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-199-8 $20.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-209-4 poetry / art

4 university of iowa press . fall 2013 Chapman is my shepherd; I shall not think. HE maketh me to assume the position with my socks off; HE leadeth me beside my locker; HE restorath my faith in bolt cutters. He leadeth me in the paths of paranoia for HIS ego’s sake. Yeah, though I walk through the gates of Corporate Security, I still fear THY evil; for THOU still work here: THY rod and THY staff they intimidate me. THOU preparest a false cause against me in the absence of my accusers: THOU anointeth my reputation with unfounded accusations and cup runneth over with indignation. Surely deception and illegalities will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of self-righteous fascism forever.

www.uiowapress.org 5 Ascension Theory • • • • • • • by Christopher Bolin • ascension theory Kuhl House Poets •• • • • • • • • • • •• • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Mark Levine, series editor • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

“T his meditation,” writes Christopher Bolin in Ascension Theory, “is • about appearing without motes between us: / it is practice for pre- senting oneself to God.” Bolin’s stark and masterful debut collection records a deeply moving attempt to restore poetry to the possibilities of redemptive action. The physical and emotional landscapes of these poems, rendered with clear-eyed precision, are beyond the reaches of protection and consolation: tundra, frozen sea, barren woodlands, Poems by skies littered with satellite trash, fields marked by abandoned, make- christopher bolin shift shrines, sick rooms, vacant reaches that provide “nodes / in every • •• • • • • • • • • • • • direction // for sensing // the second coming.” • Bolin’s eye and mind are acutely tuned to the edges of broken objects and vistas, to the mysterious remnants out of which mean- “Christopher Bolin has undertaken— ingful speech might be reconstituted. These poems unfold in a world beautifully and with immeasurable tact—the of beautiful, crystalline absence, one that is nearly depopulated, as task of loving this world rightly and really. though encountered in the aftermath of an unnamed violence to the The task is endless, and he rejoices in it. The land and to the soul. task is intricate, and his joy magnifies it in In poems of prodigious elegance and anxious control, Bolin evokes sublime detail. Ascension Theory is a lustrous influences as various as Robert Frost, James Wright, Robert Hass, book.”—Donald Revell, author, Tantivy George Oppen, and Robert Creeley, while fashioning his own original and urgent idiom, one that both theorizes and tests the prospects “The ravaged landscapes in Ascension Theory of imaginative ascension, and finds “new locutions for referencing are suffused with speechlessness, isolation, / sky.” and anonymity. Avalanches, vast tundras, birds, goods, and flags—things are nearly Christopher Bolin lives in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and teaches at dead and icing over, becoming symbols the College of St. Benedict / St. John’s University. He has published before they ever existed in themselves. Alert poems in jubilat, Lana Turner, Post Road, 1913: A Journal of Forms, VOLT, to injury and the need for connection, Bolin and Cura. He is a recipient of fellowships from the James A. Michener presents a secular way of life haunted by lost Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, and holds an MFA from the powers of religion, myth, labor, and heroic University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. action. The tremendous authority of these poems comes from their capacity to witness dissolution and repair, to capture illumina- Allowances tion in those last seconds before it vanishes again.”—Joanna Klink, author, Raptus As when fruit trees blot the constellation’s head and loose it—thoughtless and blind—to assemble “In Ascension Theory, Christopher Bolin has itself written a postmodern pastoral that is abso- in the West; lutely mesmerizing. The poems are set deep as when the aviary nets itself, again; in a wintry rural world that appears barely as when they plant a single terrace at a time encroached by humans. Here, Bolin medi- tates on the stark absence of spiritual suste- to keep from losing light; nance and how in the face of such absence, as when, under crows, we construct our own ersatz apparitions as a the shadows totter back and forth means of survival. Each poem is economical, through trash; as when the trash-fires crown scored with a silence that sings as finely as in December’s trash; Bolin’s richly imagined lines. Ascension Theory as when astral charts is an ambitious and wondrous debut.” —Cathy Park Hong, author, Engine Empire include rescue flares—and we are, so briefly, who we are. october 90 pages . 6 x 8 inches $18.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-195-0 $18.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-205-6 poetry

6 university of iowa press . fall 2013 What Happens Next? Matters of Life and Death What by Douglas Bauer Happens Iowa and the Midwest Experience Next? William Friedricks, series editor

“These are some of the finest, if not the finest, personal essays I have ever read. With exacting and exquisite prose, Douglas Bauer achieves the truly remarkable here: he plumbs the heart of his midwestern family with brave and naked fairness, rendering his own mortality with a steadfastly clear-eyed and life-loving attention to all that is essential, our shared human frailty and resilience and those tangled but lasting ties that bind. Matters of Life and Death What Happens Next? Matters of Life and Death is a masterful, soul-nourish- Douglas Bauer ing work, and I simply cannot recommend it highly enough.” —Andre Dubus III, author, Townie: A Memoir

What is life about but the continuous posing of the questions: what happens next, and what do we make of it when it arrives? In these highly evocative personal essays, Douglas Bauer weaves together the stories of his own and his parents’ lives, the meals they ate, the work and rewards and regrets that defined them, and the “This remarkable memoir-in-essays re- inevitable betrayal by their bodies as they aged. spects time but is not enslaved to it. Bauer His collection features at its center a long and memory-rich piece moves in circular fashion among incidents seasoned with sensory descriptions of the midday dinners his mother that foreshadow later ones and recall cooked for her farmer husband and father-in-law every noon for many earlier. It’s not a linear but a spiral history, years. It’s this memoir in miniature that sets the table for the other which touches us and then touches again. stories that surround it—of love and bitterness, of hungers served As for the language: in each sentence each and denied. Good food and marvelous meals would take on other word seems the only possible choice. How revelatory meanings for Bauer as a young man, when he met, became easily the prose lets us read it; what artis- lifelong friends with, and was tutored in the pleasures of an appetite tic intensity made it that way.” for life by M. F. K. Fisher, the century’s finest writer in English on “the —Edith Pearlman, author, Binocular Vision, art of eating,” to borrow one of her titles. winner of the 2012 National Book Critics The unavoidable companion of the sensual joys of food and friend- Circle Award ship is the fragility and ultimately the mortality of the body. As a teenager, Bauer courted sports injuries to impress others, sometimes “In What Happens Next? Doug Bauer circles with his toughness and other times with his vulnerability. And as his own life, that of the farm boy who happens to all of us, eventually his body began to show the common discovers cities, and those of his parents signs of wear—cataracts, an irregular heartbeat, an arthritic knee. who didn’t, with piercing intelligence and That these events might mark the arc of his life became clear when lucidity. Whether he’s describing snow in his mother, a few months shy of eighty-seven, slipped on some ice Iowa or oysters in New Orleans, Bauer is a and injured herself. master of the telling detail. This is a beau- In these clear-eyed, wry and graceful essays, Douglas Bauer pres- tiful book about mortal matters and the ents with candor and humor the dual calendars of his own mortality great lessons of time that are written on and that of his aging parents, evoking the regrets and affirmations the body.”—Margot Livesey, author, inherent in being human. The Flight of Gemma Hardy

Douglas Bauer is the author of several books, including Prairie City, “Douglas Bauer’s prose is as bracing as Iowa: Three Seasons at Home (Iowa, 2008), The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on clear, cold water, its depths stunningly vis- Craft, and three novels, Dexterity, The Very Air, and The Book of Famous ible from the surface. What Happens Next? Iowans. His edited works include Death by Pad Thai and Other Unforget- is a work of extraordinary empathy and table Meals and Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite Television Shows. great art.”—Bernard Cooper Named the Public Library Foundation of Iowa’s Outstanding Writer in 2003, he has also won grants from the National Endowment for “A routine medical procedure is the starting the Arts in both fiction and creative nonfiction. He lives in Boston point of this beautiful and original book of and teaches literature at Bennington College. essays in which Douglas Bauer threads the story of his physical self in and out of the september remembered and reconstructed past. The 160 pages . 5 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches result is a gorgeous meditation on history, $17.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-183-7 mortality, and love.”—Ann Packer, author, $17.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-203-2 Swim Back to Me essays

www.uiowapress.org 7 Lungs Full of Noise by Tessa Mellas Lungs Full of Noise 2013 Iowa Short Fiction Award tessa mellas

“Tessa Mellas is a visionary, possessed of the ability to take us to worlds we’ve never imagined but that reveal our all-too-familiar hopes, fears, and vulnerabilities. Her stories are lyrical, laced with exquisite detail and image. They show their intelligence not only through their originality but also, and perhaps more importantly, through their sense of humor. Our children may baffle us, bodies may deceive us, our friends may confound us, but at least, these stories suggest, we are not alone. Tessa Mellas has made our human community richer with this deeply original and unforgettable book.”—Julie Orringer

“Tessa Mellas’s Lungs Full of Noise is funny, bizarre, dangerous in the way that Angela Carter’s fiction was funny, bizarre, dangerous. The worlds “A remarkable first collection.” herein are like our worlds, except more beautiful, more illuminating, more Brock Clarke, author, Exley and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England fantastic—in both senses of that world. A remarkable first collection.” —Brock Clarke, author, Exley and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England “In her gorgeous debut, Tessa Mellas arrives “The stories in this striking collection are both visceral and lyrical, rooted armed with the sharp implements of fable and airy. Mellas’s language seeks altitude, but her unceasing and vivid and fairy tale, cutting back the mundane attention to the physical body provides exhilarating counterweight. skin of the world to reveal its fruit, strange If setting is where story takes place, the body is the real setting of this and sensuous and dripping with danger and impressive debut.”—Chris Bachelder, author, Abbott Awaits desire. I dare any reader to remain unmoved and unchanged in the face of her characters’ This prize-winning debut of twelve stories explores a femi- many transmutations: this book is a cocoon ninity that is magical, raw, and grotesque. Aghast at the failings of of story, and you will emerge from it trans- their bodies, this cast of misfit women and girls sets out to remedy formed.”—Matt Bell, author, In the House the misdirection of their lives in bold and reckless ways. upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods Figure skaters screw skate blades into the bones of their feet to master elusive jumps. A divorcee steals the severed arm of her ex to “The stories in Tessa Mellas’s debut col- reclaim the fragments of a dissolved marriage. Following the advice lection bear a resemblance—in their of a fashion magazine, teenaged girls binge on grapes to dye their inventive conceits, their witty and playful skin purple and attract prom dates. And a college freshman wages execution—to the work of Kelly Link, Judy war on her roommate from Jupiter, who has inadvertently seduced Budnitz, Aimee Bender, and Julia Slavin. But all the boys in their dorm with her exotic hermaphroditic anatomy. Mellas is an original, as these fiercely lyri- But it isn’t just the characters who are in crisis. In Lungs Full of Noise, cal, delightfully idiosyncratic stories dem- personal disasters mirror the dissolution of the natural world. Written onstrate. Her primary subjects are girlhood in lyrical prose with imagination and humor, Tessa Mellas’s collection and apocalypse—and the ways in which, is an aviary of feathered stories that are rich, emotive, and imbued seen close up, those subjects may turn out with the strength to suspend strange new worlds on delicate wings. to be the same. In Lungs Full of Noise, Mellas makes the familiar wondrous, strange, and Tessa Mellas’s stories have appeared in Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s surprisingly poignant. A splendid first book Ferry Review, Prism International, and StoryQuarterly and have been an- from a gifted writer.”—Michael Griffith, thologized in 40 Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial and Apocalypse author, Trophy Now: Prose and Poetry from the End of Days. Born in northern New York, she has competed nationally in synchronized figure skating. She earned a BA from St. Lawrence University, an MFA from Bowling Green State University, and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and two cats and teaches writing at the Ohio State University. october 128 pages . 5 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches $17.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-200-1 $17.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-217-9 fiction

8 university of iowa press . fall 2013 If I’d Known You Were Coming by Kate Milliken 2013 John Simmons Short Fiction Award

“The startling, darkly beautiful stories of Kate Milliken will make you uncomfortable, disquieted, suspicious, even weirdly aroused—and you will be left with the realization you don’t know everyone you thought you knew, the equivalent of a camera pressed through the bedroom blinds of the couple next door. She never flinches, but you will.”—Benjamin Percy, author, Red Moon

“These twelve elegant, edgy, and deftly made stories are full of ravenous women, hungry for money, attention, fame—sometimes even fame by proxy—and sometimes even food. Highly compelling and a little bit ter- rifying, If I’d Known You Were Coming is a terrific debut.”—Pam Houston, author, Contents May Have Shifted

“These twelve marvelous stories expose the tenacity of blood memory: tender, accusatory, sometimes off course. Here, the aftermath of aban- donment is replete with risk, sensuality, and truth; loss and replacement repeat in endless cycles, both vital and sorrowful. In these brilliantly wise, emotionally haunting stories, Kate Milliken reminds us how wild- “Kate Milliken’s stories burn straight to ness can overtake the most mundane circumstance, how the quietest the darkest places in our hearts, speaking inclination toward loyalty or betrayal can alter, even determine, fate.” aloud the thoughts we hardly dare to call —Melissa Pritchard, author, Spirit Seizures our own. In twelve flawless pieces, Milliken expertly illuminates the aftermath of aban- In these twelve award-winning stories, Kate Milliken donment; her characters, cast adrift, find unflinchingly shows us what can happen when the uninvited guest of themselves painfully alone, futilely seek- our darkest desires comes to call. Whether surrounded by the white ing what was torn away long ago. Milliken noise of a Hollywood celebration or enduring a stark winter in Maine, writes with merciless precision about the characters of If I’d Known You Were Coming yearn to heal old wounds women and men, about the old and the with new hurts. With a wry wit and a keen eye for emotive detail, the young, about the betrayers and betrayed. author of this unforgettable collection sets intersections in motion You will stay up all night to learn the fates that will leave you both winded and wanting more. of these people, who will become as real to In one story, a mother, driven by greed, unwittingly finds out how you as anyone you know.”—Julie Orringer far her needs will push her. A hand model surprises himself and everyone else at the birthday party of an old friend’s daughter in another. “Subtle and suspenseful stories filled with With poetic deftness, a woman evaluates the meaning, the familial the kind of precise and original detail that stories, that we carry with us from birth. In a story ripped from the portrays all the complexity of our lives.” headlines, a woman pines for the legs her husband lost in a freak ac- —Sheila Kohler, author, The Bay of Foxes cident at a Santa Monica farmer’s market. A medical clerk, restless and alone, takes advantage of a disabled neighbor. Kate Milliken knows the ties that bind and how tautly we will pull them. These are stories about desire, betrayal, love, regret, and family. Like all great fiction, If I’d Known You Were Coming possesses that uncanny ability to reveal us to ourselves.

Kate Milliken’s stories have appeared in Zyzzyva, Fiction, New Orleans Review, and Santa Monica Review, among others. A graduate of the Ben- nington College Writing Seminars, the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Tin House Summer Writer’s Work- shop, and several Pushcart Prize nominations, Kate has also written for television and commercial advertising. She currently teaches on behalf of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and lives in Mill Val- ley, California, with her family. october 126 pages . 5 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches $17.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-201-8 $17.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-218-6 fiction Adam Karsten

www.uiowapress.org 9 A Brighter Word Than Bright Keats at Work ORD R W THA by Dan Beachy-Quick TE N H B G R Muse Books: The Iowa Series in Creativity and Writing I I G Robert D. Richardson, series editor R B H

“In a series of lined meditations that are also incantations, Dan Beachy- Quick explores the lyrical richness of Keats’s poetry. With the eye of an artist, the ear of a musician, and the precision of a scholar, Beachy-Quick takes us on a journey through the many contradictions and innovations of Keats’s process.”—Debbie Lee, author, Romantic Liars Keats at Work

“This book on inspiration and imagination in Keats is nothing if not itself DAN BEACHY-QUICK inspired and imaginatively backed up by example and original analysis. Dan Beachy-Quick brings Keatsian depth and texture to his study, which is as much a poetry biography as it is an incredibly close reading of the major poems.”—Stanley Plumly

The Romantic poet John Keats, considered by many as one of the greatest poets in the English language, has long been the subject “A Brighter Word Than Bright ingeniously of attention from scholars who seek to understand him and poets traces Keats’s development and ethos who seek to emulate him. Bridging these impulses, A Brighter Word as a writer, from the ‘erotic effort’ of the Than Bright is neither historical biography nor scholarly study, but poem and the ‘great silence of the Grecian instead a biography of Keats’s poetic imagination. Here the noted urn’ to the ‘abyss in all its varieties.’ We poet Dan Beachy-Quick enters into Keats’s writing—both his letters are deftly escorted to a molten realm, and his poems—not to critique or judge, not to claim or argue, but where, through drone of bee and webs to embrace the passion and quickness of his poetry and engage the finely wrought we enter into intimations of aesthetic difficulties with which Keats grappled. Keats’s vision. Dan Beachy-Quick writes: Combining a set of biographical portraits that place symbolic ‘Sometimes I think a poetic presses down pressure on key moments in Keats’s life with a chronological exami- upon the poet’s mind as does a seal upon nation of the development of Keats-as-poet through his poems and the soft wax that closes a letter.’ With letters, Beachy-Quick explores the growth of the young man’s poetic exquisite delicacy and ardent quiescence, imagination during the years of his writing life, from 1816 to 1820. A this text impresses renewed and intricate Brighter Word Than Bright aims to enter the poems and the mind that paths upon which the reader may traverse wrote them, to explore and mine Keats’s poetic concerns and ambi- and inhabit the texts of one of the most tions. It is a mimetic tribute to the poet’s life and work, a brilliant beloved of poets.”—Laynie Browne, enactment that is also a thoughtful consideration. author, Roseate, Points of Gold

Dan Beachy-Quick is an associate professor of English at Colorado State University. His most recent poetry collection, Circle’s Appren- tice, won the 2012 Colorado Book Award in Poetry and was named a notable book by the Academy of American Poets. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has authored several other books of poetry as well as collections of essays and short fiction, including Work from Memory, Wonderful Investigations, and A Whaler’s Dictionary. He has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN Prize in Literature for Poetry, and the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Prize, and his work has been sup- ported by the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

september 190 pages . 5 x 8 1/2 inches $24.00 cloth original, 978-1-60938-184-4 $24.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-204-9 literature

10 university of iowa press . fall 2013 A Self Made of Words Crafting a Distinctive Persona in Nonfiction Writing A SELF by Carl H. Klaus MADE OF WORDS CRAFTING A DISTINCTIVE “Teachers of creative nonfiction have been waiting for a book just like PERSONA IN this: an elegantly articulated, easily accessible text that reveals the NONFICTION clear distinctions between style, voice, and persona. The brief, relevant WRITING exercises at the end of each chapter will educate and inspire student CARL H. KLAUS writers. Thank you, Carl Klaus. Thank you!”—Hope Edelman, author, The Possibility of Everything

Confident or fretful, solemn or sassy, tough or tender, casual or formal: the self you project in writing—your persona—is the byproduct of numerous decisions you make about what to say and how to say it. Though any single word or phrase or sentence might make little difference within the scope of an entire essay or book, collectively they create an impression of who you are or seem “Carl Klaus is to persona what Strunk and to be—an impression that’s sure to influence how readers respond to White are to style. A Self Made of Words offers your work. Thus it’s essential to take charge of how you come across clear, friendly instructions on how writers on the page, to craft an appropriate persona for whatever you’re writ- can create their persona of choice—a lifeline ing, whether it’s a personal essay, a blog, a technical report, a letter to to getting a life on paper.”—Lynn Z. Bloom, the editor, or a memoir. In this wise and ingenious little guide, noted author, The Seven Deadly Virtues and Other essayist Carl Klaus shows you how to adapt your self to the needs of Lively Essays such varied nonfiction, by varying his own persona to illustrate the distinctive effect produced by each aspect and element of writing. “Carl Klaus is one of the great pioneers in Klaus divides his book into two parts: first, an introduction to the the study of literary nonfiction. He is also a nature and function of a persona, then a survey of the most important brilliant teacher who has guided countless elements of writing that contribute to the character of a persona, from students—many of them now well-known point of view and organization to diction and sentence structure. authors—through the joys and challenges Both parts contain exercises that will give you practice in developing of crafting beautiful, effective prose. Here a persona of your choice. Challenging and stimulating, each of his he draws on his substantial experience to exercises focuses on a distinctly different aspect of composition and take on one of the genre’s defining, yet most style, so as to help you develop the skills of a versatile and person- elusive features: the creation of a distinctive able writer. By focusing on the most important ways of projecting literary persona. This book is a godsend for your self in nonfiction prose, you can learn to craft a distinctive self all writers and teachers of nonfiction—and in your writing. their students!”—John T. Price, author, Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships Carl H. Klaus, founder of the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, is professor emeritus at Iowa and coeditor (with Patricia Hampl) of Sightline Books: The Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction. His widely praised nonfiction includes The Made-Up Self: Impersonation in the Personal Essay (Iowa, 2010), Letters to Kate: Life after Life (Iowa, 2006), My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season (Iowa, 2000) and its companion, Weathering Winter (Iowa, 1997), as well as Taking Retirement: A Beginner’s Diary. His most recent nonfiction project (co- edited with Ned Stuckey-French) is Essayists on the Essay: Montaigne to Our Time (Iowa, 2012).

november 98 pages . 5 x 8 inches $18.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-194-3 $18.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-214-8 writing

www.uiowapress.org 11 Biting through the Skin An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau

“Biting through the Skin is a delicious book in all ways—rich, evocative, Biting through lyrical prose that exactly suits the savory and sweet story of examining the Skin An Indian Kitchen identity through the lens of food. Furstenau’s sensibility is wise, witty, in America’s Heartland and generous, and her story of finding one’s self and family through nina mukerjee furstenau tastes is inspiring. Biting through the Skin tells a powerful archetypical story of American identity, of being a stranger in a strange land (even in one’s home), and of navigating a dual self that in Furstenau’s rendering is both comfortingly familiar, yet startlingly fresh. Biting through the Skin is wonderfully captivating.”—Maureen Stanton, author, Killer Stuff and Tons of Money

At once a traveler’s tale, a memoir, and a mouthwatering cookbook, Biting through the Skin offers a first-generation immigrant’s perspective on growing up in America’s heartland. Author Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s parents brought her from Bengal in northern “In this story of assimilation, Nina Mukerjee India to the small town of Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1964, decades before Furstenau embraces the culinary thread that you could find long-grain rice or plain yogurt in American grocery weaves one culture into another, transcend- stores. Embracing American culture, the Mukerjee family ate ham- ing both geography and time. Her recipes burgers and softserve ice cream, took a visiting guru out on the lake are a testimonial to the fact that your heri- in their motorboat, and joined the Shriners. Her parents transferred tage never deserts you. Be sure your house- the cultural, spiritual, and family values they had brought with them hold is stocked with curry ingredients before to their children only behind the closed doors of their home, through embarking on this journey; a serious craving the rituals of cooking, serving, and eating Bengali food and making awaits you.”—Patricia Erd, spice merchant a proper cup of tea. and owner, The Spice House, est. 1957 As a girl and a young woman, Nina traveled to her ancestral India as well as to college and to Peace Corps service in Tunisia. Through her “Nina Furstenau has written a memoir of journeys and her marriage to an American man whose grandparents longing and belonging, and her search for hailed from Germany and Sweden, she learned that her family was identity as an Indian American in the rural not alone in being a small pocket of culture sheltered from the larger Midwest is both eminently universal and world. Biting through the Skin shows how we maintain our differences achingly particular. Biting through the Skin as well as how we come together through what and how we cook and is tender, funny, wise, and beautiful—a eat. In mourning the partial loss of her heritage, the author finds celebration of the language of food and an that, ultimately, heritage always finds other ways of coming to meet exploration of the ties that bind.” us. In effect, it can be reduced to a 4x 6-inch recipe card, something —Todd Kliman, author, The Wild Vine: that can fit into a shirt pocket. It’s on just such tiny details of life that A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of belonging rests. American Wine In this book, the author shares her shirt-pocket recipes and a great deal more, inviting readers to join her on her journey toward herself and toward a vital sense of food as culture and the mortar of community.

Born in Thailand to Indian parents, Nina Mukerjee Furstenau grew up in Kansas, served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, and founded a publishing company with her husband. Now a journalist and food writer based in Fayette, Missouri, she also teaches journalism at the University of Missouri.

september 192 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 6 illustrations $19.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-185-1 $19.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-208-7 food / memoir Photography Anastasia Pottinger

12 university of iowa press . fall 2013 Others Had It Worse Sour Dock, Moonshine, and Hard Times in Davis County, Iowa Vetra Melrose Padget Covert by Vetra Melrose Padget Covert and Chris D. Baker and Chris D. Baker A Bur Oak Book Holly Carver, series editor Others haD it “Chris Baker has not only preserved the life of one woman but has also given us a way to read a text that follows its own path. By valuing what WOrse would typically be overlooked, he has broadened our understanding of sour Dock, Moonshine, life writing and illuminated the daily effects of poverty and isolation, as & hard times in well as the small joys that arise amid both. It is a song one should not Davis County, iowa miss hearing.”—Jennifer Sinor, author, The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray’s Diary

In 1977, while studying journalism at the University of Iowa, Chris Baker gave his grandmother a notebook and asked her to write about her childhood. Years later, long after her death in 1990, he found the tattered yellow notebook. In twenty-nine handwritten “Others Had It Worse is a captivating account pages, the woman he knew as Grandma Covert had recorded her of a woman’s life between 1920 and 1929. younger life in rural Iowa between 1920 and 1929. Writing about Born on the prairie, raised in a log cabin herself from the ages of four to thirteen, Vetra Covert sent a simple with the snow covering her blanket in the message back to her grandson: “That’s just the way it was. Others winter, Vetra Covert gives us a glimpse had it worse. We got by.” into the rough and tumble life of the times Captivated by this glimpse of a woman very different from the more —from country school to hunting and formidable grandmother of his memory, Chris Baker reframed Vetra’s moonshining. A valuable piece of American journal to create a narrative of her childhood and a window into rural rural history.”—Mary Swander, author, Iowa life in the 1920s. Transcribing her words into nine chapters Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment that illuminate home, family, neighbors, school, and social life, he has composed a collection of candid, whimsical, sometimes ornery “It is a pleasure to read Vetra Padget stories that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to decipher Covert’s memories of growing up poor and the lives found in old letters and photos. getting by in rural southern Iowa during Vetra’s was not a romantic little-house-on-the-prairie childhood. the 1920s. In a matter-of-fact voice, she re- She grew up with seven brothers and sisters (every new baby was “a calls the work, play, and school days of her supprise”) in a dilapidated log cabin near a small town now vanished youth. Readers will enjoy the tales of pet from the Iowa map. Two rooms up, two rooms down, no plumb- pigs, wild salad greens, dancing, and making, no electricity, holes in the roof and floor so big “you could of ing molasses, moonshine, and mischief. throwed a cat through them.” Her father was a bootlegger-farmer These reminiscences, told in an authentic who measured his corn yield in gallons, not bushels, a moonshiner voice, conjure a long gone world that occasionally harassed by federal agents. Although family stories now should be remembered by those who call present him as a quaint old-timer, the reality of living with him was the Midwest home.”—J. L. Anderson, au- much starker. thor, Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, In his introduction to Vetra’s recollections, Chris Baker reveals the Technology, and Environment, 1945–1972 harsh truths underlying her authentic, uncomplaining account. By honoring her legacy, he discovered a newfound respect for her and “Mom always used a poltice on sores that for her family’s ability to survive despite the devastating forces of pov- needed it. If bread and milk poltice didn’t erty, isolation, and the looming Great Depression. Together he and work guess what cow manure poltice. I tell his grandmother have created an enduring chapter in family history. you it worked. When She greased us for a cold it was Kerosene and lard warmed Vetra Covert was born in 1916 in rural Davis County, Iowa. Wife, together till warm and rub it on. It worked mother, homemaker, and consummate baker, she died in 1990 in and put 3 drops on a tsp of sugar and swal- Ottumwa, Iowa. Photographer, writer, and musician Chris Baker is low it to break a cold up.”—from Others the author of In Retrospect: An Illustrated History of Wapello County, Iowa. Had It Worse He works in the fields of mediation and crime victim services. september 144 pages . 5 x 8 inches . 20 b&w photos . 1 map $17.50 paper original, 978-1-60938-182-0 $17.50 e-book, 978-1-60938-207-0 history / midwest

www.uiowapress.org 13 Happenstance by Robert Root Sightline Books: The Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction Patricia Hampl & Carl H. Klaus, series editors

Reflecting on how a student’s parents met because of a fly ball to center field in a summer softball game, author “Happenstance is a widely thematic and Robert Root wondered how the lives of that student’s parents and sharply focused individual and family ac- of the student himself would have changed had the batter bunted count of post–World War II midwestern or struck out. Haunted by this pure example of happenstance, he America. With its multiple modes (vignette, began to ponder his own existence, dependent in part on geology (the meditation, photograph, ekphrasis), it Niagara Escarpment) and history (the Erie Canal). He wondered how subverts and redefines memoir, always happenstance had influenced the course of his parents’ lives, in par- asking how a person might seek to know ticular their marriages (they married and divorced each other twice), himself within the larger context of na- and consequently the shaping of his identity. Happenstance investigates tion and history. Robert Root’s prose is a the effects of that phenomenon and choice on one man’s life. refreshing joy to read.”—Patrick Madden, Root explores this theme in interwoven strands of narrative, inter- author, Quotidiana pretation, and reflection. One strand, “The Hundred Days,” follows his attempt to write one hundred journal entries, each about a differ- “With an archaeologist’s intuition for pre- ent day in his life, to recover memories of specific moments or collec- cious finds, Robert Root overturns the sur- tions of moments. In the strand headed “Album,” he examines and face composure of family photos to reveal interprets old family photographs in light of the way he reads them powerful, elusive truths. Reassembling in the present, as someone now privy to a family secret that directed history, he opens his aperture wide and his and his siblings’ lives without their knowledge. Interspersed floods his subjects with compassion. These among these brief interpretations and narratives are reflections on gorgeously shaped meditations illuminate happenstance and choice, a sequence contemplating their effect on both the mystery of happenstance and the his life and perhaps on all our lives. Through juxtaposition and ac- miracle of intentional choices.” cumulation, the book’s incremental unraveling of meaning imitates —Lia Purpura, author, Rough Likeness the process of unexpected epiphanies and gradual self-discovery in anyone’s life. By revisiting individual days, giving voice to photographs that mutely preserve family moments, and reflecting on the way happenstance and choice determine the directions lives take, Robert Root generates a meditation on identity anchored in an album in words and images of a mid-twentieth-century life.

Professor emeritus at Central Michigan University, Robert Root teaches for the creative writing MFA program at Ashland University. His writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, named as No- table Essays in volumes of the annual Best American Essays series, and recognized with the Kay Levin Award for Short Nonfiction from the Council for Wisconsin Writers, the Donald Murray Award for the Best Essay on Writing and Teaching, and the National Park Service Cooperating Association’s Excellence in Interpretive Media Award. His website is www.rootwriting.com. He lives in Wisconsin.

november 296 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 49 b&w photos $25.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-191-2 $25.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-220-9 memoir

14 university of iowa press . fall 2013 Between Urban and Wild Reflections from Colorado by Andrea M. Jones A Bur Oak Book Holly Carver, series editor

“Westerners have arrived at a Y in Nature’s rocky road—a forked path littered with ethical questions. In Between Urban and Wild, Andrea Jones offers humble and probing answers to the question of whether it’s too late for Westerners to find an integral way of being with the land, and not just on the land. Her book offers hope.”—Page Lambert, author, In Search of Kinship: Modern Pioneering on the Western Landscape

In her calm, carefully reasoned perspective on place, An- drea Jones focuses on the familiar details of country life balanced by the larger responsibilities that come with living outside an urban boundary. Neither an environmental manifesto nor a prodevelopment defense, Between Urban and Wild operates partly on a practical level, partly on a naturalist’s level. Jones reflects on life in two homes in the Colorado Rockies, first in Fourmile Canyon in the foothills west of Boulder, then near Cap Rock Ridge in central Colorado. Whether ne- “In Between Urban and Wild, Andrea Jones ex- gotiating territory with a mountain lion, balancing her observations plores the dangers and contradictions of es- of the predatory nature of pygmy owls against her desire to protect a tablishing her home between urban and wild nest of nuthatches, working to reduce her property’s vulnerability to lands. Wasting no energy on blame, anger, wildfire while staying alert to its inherent risks during fire season, or or excuses, she examines ways to live more decoding the distinct personalities of her horses, she advances the responsibly, demonstrating how we must tradition of nature writing by acknowledging the effects of sprawl thoughtfully adjust to our surroundings on a beloved landscape. rather than changing the landscape to fit our Although not intended as a manual for landowners, Between Urban whims.”—Linda M. Hasselstrom, author, No and Wild nonetheless offers useful and engaging perspectives on Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life the realities of settling and living in a partially wild environment. Throughout her ongoing journey of being home, Jones’s close ob- “Andrea Jones’s Between Urban and Wild is a servations of the land and its native inhabitants are paired with the touching account of her intimate connection suggestion that even small landholders can act to protect the health with the natural world of central Colorado, of their properties. Her brief meditations capture and honor the a land that is, like her book, simultaneously subtleties of the natural world while illuminating the importance of severe and beautiful. Through a combina- working to safeguard it. tion of flashbacks and present-day musings, Probing the contradictions of a lifestyle that burdens the health of she invites the reader to appreciate the joys, the land that she loves, Jones’s writing is permeated by her gentle, challenges, and sublimity of this landscape. earnest conviction that living at the urban-wild interface requires She offers up a deeply personal, deeply af- us to set aside self-interest, consider compromise, and adjust our fecting narrative of a life inseparable from expectations and habits—to accommodate our surroundings rather the land.”—Matthew Wynn Sivils than force them to accommodate us.

Andrea M. Jones was born and raised in Colorado, where she lives with her husband and their two horses. Her essays have appeared in Orion, the Christian Science Monitor, High Country News, and Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-Based Writing, among others. She is the owner of Jones Literary Services.

november 192 pages . 5 1/4 x 9 inches $22.50 paper original, 978-1-60938-187-5 $22.50 e-book, 978-1-60938-212-4 environment

www.uiowapress.org 15 Necessary Courage Iowa’s Underground Railroad in the Struggle against Slavery by Lowell J. Soike Iowa and the Midwest Experience William Friedricks, series editor

During the 1850s and early 1860s, Iowa, the westernmost free state bordering a slave state, stood as a bulwark of antislavery senti- ment while the decades-long struggle over slavery shifted westward. On its southern border lay Missouri, the northernmost slaveholding state. To its west was the Kansas-Nebraska Territory, where proslavery and antislavery militias battled. Missouri slaves fled to Iowa seeking freedom, finding opponents of slavery who risked their lives and livelihoods to help them, as well as bounty hunters who forced them Courtesy of the State Historical Society Iowa, Iowa City back into bondage. When opponents of slavery streamed west across William Maxson the state’s broad prairies to prevent slaveholders from dominating Kansas, Iowans fed, housed, and armed the antislavery settlers. Not “This book represents the culmination a few young Iowa men also took up arms. of the Iowa Freedom Trail Grant Project, In Necessary Courage, historian Lowell J. Soike details long-forgotten which presents the first comprehensive stories of determined runaways and the courageous Iowans who statewide survey of the intriguing people, acted as conductors on this most dangerous of railroads—the under- long-forgotten places, and exciting events ground railroad. Alexander Clark, an African American businessman associated with the history of abolition in Muscatine, hid a young fugitive in his house to protect him from and the underground railroad in Iowa pri- slavecatchers while he fought for his freedom in the courts. While or to and during the Civil War.”—Douglas keeping antislavery newspapers fully apprised of the battle against W. Jones, Iowa Freedom Trail grant project human bondage in western Iowa, Elvira Gaston Platt drove a wagon manager, State Historical Society of Iowa, full of fugitives to the next safe house under the noses of her proslav- Des Moines ery neighbors. John Brown, fleeing across Iowa with a price on his head for the murders of proslavery Kansas settlers, relied on Iowans “For far too long, Underground Railroad like Josiah Grinnell and William Penn Clarke to keep him, his men, histories have ignored the important role and the twelve Missouri slaves they had liberated hidden from the that Iowa played in the fight to end slavery. authorities. Several young Iowans went on to fight alongside Brown In a nice overview, Soike tells the stories of at Harpers Ferry. These stories and many more are told here. those individuals—enslaved and free, black A suspenseful and often heartbreaking tale of desperation, cour- and white, male and female—who had the age, cunning, and betrayal, this book reveals the critical role that ‘necessary courage’ to prevail against the Iowans played in the struggle against slavery and the coming of the tragedy of slavery.”—Deanda Johnson, Civil War. Midwest regional manager, National Park Service’s Network to Freedom Now retired from the State Historic Preservation Office of the State Historical Society of Iowa, Lowell J. Soike directed the Iowa Freedom Trail project, dedicated to recovering the history of the underground railroad in the state. Dr. Soike earned his PhD at the University of Iowa and lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

november 304 pages . 5 1/2 x 9 inches . 32 illustrations . 5 maps $24.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-193-6 $24.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-222-3 american history

16 university of iowa press . fall 2013 The Lost Region Toward a Revival of Midwestern History by Jon K. Lauck Iowa and the Midwest Experience William Friedricks, series editor

“Jon Lauck has written the definitive manifesto for a new midwestern “Jon Lauck justifiably laments the neglect historiography. Deeply researched, elegantly written, passionate yet of the Midwest by both the contemporary sensible in its themes, it is a stunning book. One hopes that it will stun media and, more surprisingly, by histo- the coasties, for example, who believe that the fly-over states, many of rians, but this book is a robust and per- them beginning with the letter I, have no serious history. Lauck shows suasive response rather than a complaint. that an America without the Midwest would have been less fair, less The Midwest is vital to any explanation strong, less prosperous, and above all less democratic. Lauck is the new of the United States, and at one time Frederick Jackson Turner, reminding us that the Midwest is the master midwesterners—particularly his Prairie spring of American history—without which, not.”—Deirdre McCloskey, Historians—explained the region to itself William Maxson Distinguished Professor of History, University of Illinois at Chicago, and and praised its importance to the rest of author, The Bourgeois Virtues the country. He is right. Historians need to refill the space they once occupied.” The American Midwest is an orphan among regions. In com- —Richard White, Stanford University parison to the South, the far West, and New England, its history has been sadly neglected. To spark more attention to their region, “ The Lost Region should be a significant con- midwestern historians will need to explain the Midwest’s crucial tribution to midwestern history. As far as roles in the development of the entire country: it helped spark the I know, no one has pulled together such a American Revolution and stabilized the young American republic substantial reflection on the past and po- by strengthening its economy and endowing it with an agricultural tential future of the field.”—Pamela Riney- heartland; it played a critical role in the Union victory in the Civil Kehrberg, Iowa State University War; it extended the republican institutions created by the American founders, and then its settler populism made those institutions more democratic; it weakened and decentered the cultural dominance of the urban East; and its bustling land markets deepened Americans’ embrace of capitalist institutions and attitudes. In addition to outlining the centrality of the Midwest to crucial moments in American history, Jon K. Lauck resurrects the long- forgotten stories of the institutions founded by an earlier generation of midwestern historians, from state historical societies to the Mis- sissippi Valley Historical Association. Their strong commitment to local and regional communities rooted their work in place and gave it an audience outside the academy. He also explores the works of these scholars, showing that they researched a broad range of themes and topics, often pioneering fields that remain vital today. The Lost Region demonstrates the importance of the Midwest, the depth of historical work once written about the region, the continuing insights that can be gleaned from this body of knowledge, and the lessons that can be learned from some of its prominent historians, all with the intent of once again finding the forgotten center of the nation and developing a robust historiography of the Midwest.

Attorney, historian, and senior advisor and counsel to South Dakota Senator John Thune, Jon K. Lauck is the author of three previous books on midwestern political and economic history and the coau- thor and coeditor of a collection of essays on South Dakota’s political culture. His prize-winning articles and reviews have been published widely. Lauck lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with his wife Amy and three children, Brendtly, Abigail, and Henry. december 206 pages . 6 x 9 inches $35.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-189-9 $35.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-216-2 american history

www.uiowapress.org 17 Gardening the Amana Way by Lawrence L. Rettig A Bur Oak Book Holly Carver, series editor

Gardening in Iowa’s Amana Colonies is the culmination of techniques that stretch back several centuries to central Europe, when adherents to a new Amana Heritage Society faith called the Community of True Inspiration formed their own self-reliant communities. As a child of parents who were “Since the nineteenth century, visitors to the part of the communal life of the Amana Society, Larry Rettig pays Amana Colonies have been struck by the homage to the Amana gardening tradition and extends it into the well-tended flower and vegetable gardens, twenty-first century. orchards, and vineyards found there. In Each of the seven villages in Amana relied on the food prepared Gardening the Amana Way, Lawrence Rettig, in its communal kitchens, and each kitchen depended on its com- who was raised in this gardening tradition, munal garden for most of the dishes served (the kitchens in Rettig’s presents the treasure trove of knowledge hometown produced more than four hundred gallons of sauerkraut that he has gained through decades of tend- in 1900). Rettig begins by describing the evolution of communal ing his own garden in the Amanas. Rettig gardening in old Amana, focusing especially on planting, harvest- has written an entertaining book that will be ing, and storing vegetables from asparagus to egg lettuce to turnips. of special interest to gardeners and cooks, With the passing of the old order in 1932, the number of the society’s and to those who remain fascinated by the large vegetable gardens and orchards dwindled, but Larry Rettig and unique culture that is Amana.” his wife, Wilma, still grow some of the colonies’ heirloom varieties —Peter Hoehnle in their fourth-generation South Amana vegetable garden. In 1980 they founded a seed bank to preserve them for future generations. “Like a well-tended garden, Gardening the Rettig’s chapters on modern vegetable and flower gardening in Amana Way treats us to a pleasing variety: we today’s Amana Colonies showcase his Cottage-in-the-Meadow Gar- glean some history, gardening techniques, dens, now listed with the Smithsonian in its Archives of American vegetable and flower varietals, recipes— Gardens. Old intermingles with new across his gardens: heirloom even a garden tour. The growing interest in lettuce keeps company with the latest cucumber variety, a hundred- local foods makes Rettig’s account of how year-old rose arches over the newest daylilies and heucheras, and Amana’s communal, village-scale garden- ancient grapevines intertwine with newly planted wisteria, all adding ing traditions inspire his Cottage-in-the- up to a rich array of colorful plantings. Meadow garden especially timely.” Rettig extends his gardening advice into the kitchen and work- —Lanny Haldy, executive director, Amana room. He shares family recipes for any number of traditional dishes, Heritage Society including radish salad, dumpling soup, Amana pickled ham, apple bread, eleven-minute meat loaf, and strawberry rhubarb pie. Moving “Rettig has succeeded in the challenging into the workroom, he shows us how to make hammered botanical task of providing a most interesting garden prints, Della Robbia centerpieces, holiday wreaths, a gnome home, book that also provides insights into the and a waterless fountain. Touring his gardens, with their historic and interrelationships between garden and unusual plants, will make gardeners everywhere want to reproduce kitchen in one of our longest-lived commu- the groupings and varieties that surround Larry and Wilma Rettig’s nal societies. An intriguing blend of nature 1900 red brick house. and culture with an insider’s perspective, Gardening the Amana Way is a blend of plant Lawrence L. Rettig was born in 1941 in Middle Amana to parents who list, gardener’s almanac, and sustainabil- were born and raised in Iowa’s Community of True Inspiration. Most ity guide. It is as thoughtfully woven to- recently the special assistant to the vice president for research at the gether as a traditional Amana blanket. The University of Iowa, he lives in South Amana in his wife’s family home, Gardebaas (garden boss) and the Kichebaas the last house built during the old order. The author of Amana Today: A (kitchen boss) would be proud!” History of the Amana Colonies from 1932 to the Present, he writes regularly —J. Timothy Keller, Iowa State University for the websites Dave’s Garden, All Things Plants, and Cubits. october 166 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 20 b&w photos 44 color photos . 1 map $27.50 paper original, 978-1-60938-190-5 $27.50 e-book, 978-1-60938-219-3 gardening

18 university of iowa press . fall 2013 A Practical Guide to Prairie Reconstruction Second Edition by Carl Kurtz A Bur Oak Book Holly Carver, series editor

Thirty-five years and many acres after planting his first patch A Pr A cticA l Guide to of prairie flowers, Carl Kurtz is considered one of the deans of the great tallgrass prairie revival. The Prairie Enthusiast called the 2001 Prairie edition of his book a “readable and understandable introduction to ReconstRuction prairie and the general steps in carrying out a reconstruction.” Now second edition carl kurtz this second edition reflects his increased experience with reconstructing and restoring prairie grasslands. Kurtz has completely revised every chapter of the first edition, from Contents site selection and harvest to soil preparation, seeding, postplanting 1. Introduction mowing, burning, and growth and development. He has written 2. Identification new chapters on establishing prairie in old pastureland and on the 3. Seed Selection and Harvest judicious use of herbicides, including a table that shows particular 4. Site Selection problem species, the types of herbicides that are most effective at 5. Soil Preparation controlling them, and the timing and method of treatment. New 6. Old Pasture Seeding photographs illustrate species and steps, and Kurtz has expanded 7. Seeding the question-and-answer section and updated the references and the 8. Helpful Herbicides section on midwestern seed sources and services. 9. Postplanting Mowing Tallgrass prairie is critical wildlife habitat and an important el- 10. Fire in Tallgrass Prairie ement in flood control and stream water treatment. The process 11. Growth and Development of reconstructing and restoring prairie grasslands has made great 12. Questions and Answers strides in recent decades. Carl Kurtz’s indispensable, step-by-step Seed Sources and Services guide to creating a diverse and well-established prairie community References provides both directions and encouragement for individual landowners as well as land managers working with government agencies and nonprofit organizations that have taken up the task of reconstructing and restoring native grasslands.

Carl Kurtz is a professional writer, teacher, naturalist, and photographer. He and his wife and partner, Linda, live on a 172-acre family farm in central Iowa and provide a source for local-ecotype prairie seed.

august 80 pages . 6 x 8 inches . 27 color photos . 2 maps . 1 table $20.00 paper, 978-1-60938-168-4 $20.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-173-8 nature / iowa

www.uiowapress.org 19 Salamanders in Your Pocket A Guide to Caudates of the Upper Midwest by Terry VanDeWalle photographs by Suzanne L. Collins A Bur Oak Guide Holly Carver, series editor

Finding a salamander in the woodlands rates as one of the most enjoyable surprises of an early morning hike. Active mainly at night, these secretive, shiny, lizardlike amphibians often glow like jewels when found under the logs or rocks that many prefer. This colorful addition to Iowa’s popular series of laminated guides—the twenty-fifth in the series—will inform both amateur and professional naturalists about twenty-five species of salamanders found in the Upper Midwest states of Min- nesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. Common mudpuppies and lesser sirens spend their entire lives in water, never losing the gills that they developed as larvae; the lungless four-toed salamander distracts predators by detaching its tail; the eastern newt discourages predators by secreting poisonous chemicals from its skin; the flat-bodied hellbender, which can reach twenty-nine inches in length, breathes by absorbing oxygen through the folds of its skin. These, plus the well-named slimy, zigzag, tiger, and other salamanders in this guide, are now threatened by loss of habitat, pollution, and a deadly fungus. Terry VanDeWalle provides a complete description of each species as well as distinguishing characteristics for twenty-one subspecies, from the striking orange and yellow spots of the spotted salamander to the lichenlike patches of the green salamander to the prominent rounded head of the mole salamander. He also includes information about the salamanders’ range and habitat preferences, from twilight zones of limestone caves and crevices to seepages and spring-fed bogs. His comparisons of similar species and his comprehensive key are most helpful for identifying individuals in the field. Superb photographs by Suzanne Collins make this new guide the perfect companion for outdoor expeditions in all kinds of moist environments.

Terry VanDeWalle has been researching reptiles and amphibians in the Midwest for more than twenty years. Author of Snakes and Lizards in Your Pocket: A Guide to Reptiles of the Upper Midwest (Iowa, 2010), Turtles in Your Pocket: A Guide to Freshwater and Terrestrial Turtles of the Upper Midwest (Iowa, 2011), and Frogs and Toads in Your Pocket: A Guide to Amphibians of the Upper Midwest (Iowa, 2011), he is a senior biologist for Stantec Consulting in Independence, Iowa. Wildlife photographer Suzanne L. Collins is an executive officer of the Center for North American Herpetology.

december laminated fold-out guide 16 3/4 x 16 7/8 inches folds to 4 1/8 x 9 inches 25 color photos . 1 drawing $10.95 . 978-1-60938-202-5 $10.95 e-book . 978-1-60938-223-0 nature / midwest

20 university of iowa press . fall 2013 back in print Social Responsibilities of the Businessman by Howard R. Bowen SOCIAL introduction by Jean-Pascal Gond RESPONSIBILITIES foreword by Peter Geoffrey Bowen U niversity of Iowa Faculty Connections OF THE BUSINESSMAN  Howard R. Bowen

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) expresses a fun- damental morality in the way a company behaves toward society. It follows ethical behavior toward stakeholders and recognizes the spirit of the legal and regulatory environment. The idea of CSR gained momentum in the late 1950s and 1960s with the expansion of large conglomerate corporations and became a popular subject in the 1980s with R. Edward Freeman’s Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach and the many key works of Archie B. Carroll, Peter F. Drucker, and “Howard Bowen’s landmark book Social others. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008–2010, CSR has again Responsibilities of the Businessman launched become a focus for evaluating corporate behavior. the modern era of significant, serious First published in 1953, Howard R. Bowen’s Social Responsibilities writings on the topic. As its title suggests, of the Businessman was the first comprehensive discussion of business there were few businesswomen during this ethics and social responsibility. It created a foundation by which period, but this book is essential to men business executives and academics could consider the subjects as and women alike in business and academe part of strategic planning and managerial decision-making. Though today. In this classic volume, Bowen posed written in another era, it is regularly and increasingly cited because the question that has been driving the field of its relevance to the current ethical issues of business operations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for in the United States. Many experts believe it to be the seminal book over half a century: What responsibilities on corporate social responsibility. to society may businesspeople reasonably This new edition of the book includes an introduction by Jean- be expected to assume? This seminal book Pascal Gond, Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility at Cass should be number one on everyone’s read- Business School, City University of London, and a foreword by Peter ing list in social responsibility, corporate Geoffrey Bowen, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, citizenship, and sustainability today. I am who is Howard R. Bowen’s eldest son. thrilled that it is being republished so that everyone now can get their own copy.” Howard R. Bowen (1908–1989) was an American economist who —Archie B. Carroll, professor emeritus of became president of Grinnell College (1955–1964), the University of management, Terry College of Business, Iowa (1964–1969), and Claremont Graduate University (1970–1971). University of Georgia He wrote fourteen books and more than 300 articles, and received more than twenty honorary doctorate degrees.

december 298 pages . 6 x 8 inches $39.95s paper, 978-1-60938-196-7 $39.95s e-book, 978-1-60938-206-3 business

www.uiowapress.org 21 Sentimental Readers The Rise, Fall, and Revival of a Disparaged Rhetoric ) by Faye Halpern 1895

How could novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin change the hearts and minds of thousands of mid-nineteenth-century readers, yet make so many modern readers cringe at their over-the-top, tear-filled scenes? Sentimental Readers explains why sentimental rhetoric was so compel- (Boston: Lee and Shepard, ling to readers of that earlier era, why its popularity waned in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and why today it is generally character- ized as overly emotional and artificial. But author Faye Halpern also does more: she demonstrates that this now despised rhetoric remains relevant to contemporary writing teachers and literary scholars. An Hour with Delsarte Halpern examines these novels with a fresh eye by positioning sentimentality as a rhetorical strategy on the part of these novels’ (mostly) From female authors, who used it to answer a question that plagued the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century American rhetoric and “A valuable contribution to the field of oratory: how could listeners be sure an eloquent speaker wasn’t nineteenth-century literature, to women’s unscrupulously persuading them of an untruth? The authors of senti- literature, to the enormous bibliography mental novels managed to solve this problem even as the professional on sentimentality and domesticity, and to male rhetoricians and orators could not, because sentimental rheto- the vast field of composition and rhetoric. ric, filled with tears and other physical cues of earnestness, ensured Halpern specifically moves into original that an audience could trust the heroes and heroines of these novels. territory when she asks, ‘Why have scholars However, as a wider range of authors began wielding sentimental not explored the connection between the rhetoric later in the nineteenth century, readers found themselves sentimental women writers and the pro- less and less convinced by this strategy. fessional rhetoricians and orators?’ Here In her final discussion, Halpern steps beyond a purely historical is where she shines. The book brilliantly analysis to interrogate contemporary rhetoric and reading practices merges nineteenth-century American among literature professors and their students, particularly first-year women’s fiction with the theoretical field students new to the “close reading” method advocated and taught in of composition and rhetoric.” most college English classrooms. Doing so allows her to investigate —Debra J. Rosenthal, author, Race Mixture how sentimental novels are understood today by both groups and in Nineteenth-century U.S. and Spanish how these contemporary reading strategies compare to those of American Fictions: Gender, Culture, and Nation Americans more than a century ago. Clearly, sentimental novels still Building, and editor, Routledge edition of have something to teach us about how and why we read. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Faye Halpern is an associate professor of English at the University of “There is so much to praise in this work. Calgary. Her articles on nineteenth-century sentimental writing and It is erudite without being obscurantist rhetoric have appeared in the journals Nineteenth-Century Prose, College or overbearing. It is witty and wise and English, Narrative, and WPA: Writing Program Administration. She was the it offers wonderful new insights into ca- recipient of the Marie J. Langlois Dissertation Prize for Outstanding nonical figures, often by pairing work by Dissertation in an Area of Feminist Studies at Brown University and those figures with lesser known works and the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching award at Harvard University. genres. It makes a genuine new interven- She lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. tion into ongoing debates about how to read and teach mid-nineteenth-century sentimental novels. And it reminds us that when we think about literary production of this period, we cannot and should not overlook its imbrication in the cultures of oratory.”—Nicole Tonkovich, University of California, San Diego december 226 pages . 6 x 9 inches $45.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-186-8 $45.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-210-0 literary criticism / rhetoric

22 university of iowa press . fall 2013 Making Americans Children’s Literature from 1930 to 1960 by Gary D. Schmidt

American children need books that draw on their own history “Gary D. Schmidt here examines the litera- and circumstances, not just the classic European fairy tales. They ture for young people published during a need books that enlist them in the great democratic experiment that momentous period in our nation’s past, and is the United States. These were the beliefs of many of the authors, documents in compelling detail its role as illustrators, editors, librarians, and teachers who expanded and trans- an instrument of nation-building and social formed children’s book publishing in the United States between the reform. A thought-provoking contribution 1930s and the 1960s. to our understanding of children’s books Although some later critics have argued that the books published as cultural transmitters and transform- in this era offered a vision of a safe, secure, simple world without ers.”—Leonard S. Marcus, author, Minders of injustice or unhappy endings, Gary D. Schmidt shows that the pro- Make-Believe: Innovators, Entrepreneurs, and the gressive political agenda shared by many Americans who wrote, Shaping of American Children’s Literature illustrated, published, and taught children’s books had a powerful effect. Authors like James Daugherty, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lois “As a child in the early 1960s, I devoured Lenski, Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, Virginia Lee Burton, Robert those orange biographies that fictionalized McCloskey, and many others addressed directly and indirectly the the childhoods of famous Americans. Gary major social issues of a turbulent time: racism, immigration and as- Schmidt’s Making Americans explains the similation, sexism, poverty, the Great Depression, World War II, the important influence these and many other atomic bomb, and the threat of a global cold war. mid-century American children’s books had The central concern that many children’s book authors and illustra- in shaping and reflecting young citizens’ tors wrestled with was the meaning of America and democracy itself, democratic and social values. Essential especially the tension between individual freedoms and community reading.”—Richard Flynn, Georgia Southern ties. That process produced a flood of books focused on the American University experience and intent on defining it in terms of progress toward inclu- sivity and social justice. Again and again, children’s books addressed “Tracing representations of national identity racial discrimination and segregation, gender roles, class differences, in American children’s literature published the fate of Native Americans, immigration and assimilation, war, and from the 1920s through the 1960s, and pro- the role of the United States in the world. Fiction and nonfiction for viding focused readings of works by James children urged them to see these issues as theirs to understand, and Daugherty, Lois Lenski, the D’Aulaires, in some ways, theirs to resolve. Making Americans is a study of a time Virginia Lee Burton, and Robert McCloskey, when the authors and illustrators of children’s books consciously among others, Professor Schmidt offers in- set their eyes on national and international sights, with the hope of sightful readings of this significant but often bringing the next generation into a sense of full citizenship. overlooked literary canon.”—Anne Phillips, Kansas State University. A much published and oft-translated author of children’s books, Gary D. Schmidt has earned national acclaim. In 2011, his Okay for Now was a National Book Award finalist and was listed on the Notable Children’s Books lists of the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Trouble (2008) was a Junior Library Guild Selection and appeared on the Kids Reading list for Oprah’s Book Club. The Wednesday Wars (2007) and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004) were both John Newbery Honor Books. Schmidt is also professor of English at Calvin College and the author and coeditor of several scholarly books on children’s literature and children’s book authors. He lives in Alto, Michigan.

december 314 pages . 6 x 9 inches . 2 illustrations $45.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-192-9 $45.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-221-6 literary criticism

www.uiowapress.org 23 in = dex by author Baker, Chris D. 13 Gond, Jean-Pascal 21 Lauck, Jon K. 17 Bauer, Douglas 7 Griffin, Jeff 4 Mellas, Tessa 8 Beachy-Quick, Dan 10 Halpern, Faye 22 Milliken, Kate 9 Bolin, Christopher 6 Havick, John 3 Rettig, Lawrence L. 18 Bowen, Howard R. 21 Jones, Andrea M. 15 Root, Robert 14 Bowen, Peter Geoffrey 21 Kaufman, Peter 2 Schmidt, Gary, D. 23 Collins, Suzanne L. 20 Klaus, Carl H. 11 Soike, Lowell J. 16 Covert, Vetra Melrose Padget 13 Kurtz, Carl 19 VanDeWalle, Terry 20 Furstenau, Nina Mukerjee 12 Larsen, Katherine 1 Zubernis, Lynn S. 1 in = dex by title Ascension Theory 6 Lungs Full of Noise 8 Between Urban and Wild 15 Making Americans 23 Biting through the Skin 12 Necessary Courage 16 A Brighter Word Than Bright 10 Others Had It Worse 13 Fangasm 1 A Practical Guide to Prairie Reconstruction 19 Gardening the Amana Way 18 Salamanders in Your Pocket 20 The Ghosts of NASCAR 3 A Self Made of Words 11 Happenstance 14 Sentimental Readers 22 If I’d Known You Were Coming 9 Skull in the Ashes 2 Lost and 4 Social Responsibilities of the Businessman 21 The Lost Region 17 What Happens Next? 7

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