Driftless

Author's Bio:

As a young man, DAVID RHODES worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa, nurturing his love of reading along the way. After receiving an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in rapid succession: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (Atlantic/Little, Brown, 1972), The Easter House (Harper & Row, 1974), and Rock Island Line (Harper & Row, 1975). A motorcycle accident in 1976 left him paralyzed from the chest down, which brought a temporary halt to his publishing career. In 2008, he returned to publication with Driftless, which has been heralded as a critical success and the “best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years” (Chicago Tribune). Rhodes lives with his wife, Edna, in rural Wisconsin.

Quotes:

“Now, after what had to have been years of effort beyond the usual struggle of trying to make a good novel, we get [Rhodes’s] fourth, and, I have to shout it out, finest book yet. Driftless is the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years.”
—Chicago Tribune

“A profound and enduring paean to rural America. Radiant in its prose and deep in its quiet understanding of human needs.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Driftless is a fast-moving story about small town life with characters that seem to have walked off the pages of Edgar Lee Masters’s ‘Spoon River Anthology.’” —Wall Street Journal

“Comprised of a large number of short chapters, the novel opens with a prologue reminiscent of Steinbeck’s beautiful tribute to the Salinas Valley in the opening of East of Eden, with a little touch of Michener’s prologue to his novel Hawaii. The book moves at a stately pace as it offers deep philosophy and meditative asides about life in Words, Wisconsin, in the Driftless zone, which is to say, about life on earth.” —NPR, “All Things Considered”

“Few books have the power to transport the way Driftless does, and it’s Rhodes’ eye for detail that we have to thank for it.” —Time Out Chicago

“A wry and generous book. Driftless shares a rhythm with the farming community it documents, and its reflective pace is well-suited to characters who are far more comfortable with hard work than words.” —Christian Science Monitor, Best Novels of 2008

“A symphonic paean to the stillness that can be found in certain areas of the Midwest, The writing in Driftless is beautiful and surprising throughout, [and] it’s this poetic pointillism that originally made Rhodes famous.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[Driftless] presents a series of portraits that resemble Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology in their vividness and in the cumulative picture they create of village life. Each of these stories glimmers.” —New Yorker

“Rhodes consciously avoids drama to deliver a portrait of a real rural America as singular, beautiful and foreign as anywhere else.”
— Philadelphia City Paper

 “Rhodes shows he still knows how to keep readers riveted. As affecting as it is pleasantly overstuffed.” —Publishers Weekly

“[An] extraordinary new novel.” —“On Point with Tom Ashbrook”

“Rhodes illuminates the wisdom acquired through hard work, the ancient covenant of farming, and the balm of kindness. Encompassing and incisive, comedic and profound, Driftless is a radiant novel of community and courage.” —Booklist, 2008 Editor’s Choice, starred review

“Though Driftless is a deeply contemporary tale—what it has to say about the way corporations treat small farmers is, for example, quite pressing—it also has the architectural complexity of the great 19th-century novels, but without the gimcrackery too often required to hold their stories together. It partakes as much of the moral universe of Magnolia as of Middlemarch. And it earns comparison to both.” —Books & Culture

“Unique, funny, absorbing, at times frightening. A novel crafted by a real writer.” —California Literary Review, Best Books of 2008

“Rhodes’s first novel in more than 30 years provides a welcome antidote to overheated urban fiction.” —Kirkus

“A terrific novel that coalesces around the unexpected connections among people in the fictional community of Words, Wisconsin. The characters’ perceptions about the landscape, their lives and each other are continually arresting yet almost casually right on.”
—Isthmus

“Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, Rhodes’s first novel in over 30 years is set in a rural area of Wisconsin so remote and forgotten that it’s left off the map. Most of the residents have chosen to be isolated from the world around them and one another. Nevertheless, their concerns—the meaning of spirituality, family, love, and desire—are global and universal. The characters and their struggles come vibrantly alive.” —Library Journal

“With moments of humor and elements of tragedy the stuff of life is played out in this rich and affecting novel. Welcome back, David Rhodes, to the ranks of great American novelists.” —Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage (Corte Madera, CA)

“The residents of Words are so fully realized, you'll recognize them; the dialogue so authentic, you'll be looking for the tape-recorder; the hurts so real you'll ache; and the hopes so fragile you'll pray. If you allow yourself to connect with the citizens of Words you too will come to know July Montgomery, and you too will be better for it. I know I am.” —Keri Holmes, Kaleidoscope (Hampton, IA)

“Driftless has been a long time coming, but definitely worth the wait. This is David Rhodes’ most accomplished work yet—vividly imagined, shrewd, and compassionate. He is a master at uncovering the extraordinary lives of seemingly ordinary people. The characters of his small rural town become as mysterious, interconnected, and richly idiosyncratic as the landscape they struggle against and embrace. A wonderful novel.” —Joseph Kanon, author of Los Alamos and The Good German