University of Nebraska Books

I have read a lot of American history with the Old West being my favorite subject. I have always said that Stephen Ambrose's books about the Old West are some of my favorites that I have read over and over. I just finished reading Money Mountain by Marshall Sprague. It is now my favorite history book of the Old West. He writes so well it was hard to put down. Of course, the subject matter is unbelievable mining history. Some prior historical knowledge of the Cripple Creek Mining District in the late 1800s is very helpful to have before you read this book.

I was looking for a complete history of Cripple Creek from it's beginning, and I found it in this easy to read and follow book. Great details encompassing many different pioneers and stories of the area.

I don't know where I got this book, but at whim I just picked it off my bookshelf. I was not particularly interested in Colorado, or gold mining, but this well-researched history of the Cripple Creek district was so well written, that I just couldn't put it down. This book was written 50 years ago, but Marshall Sprague's style is so crisp, so fresh, it reads like it was written yesterday. He has a real knack for chapter-ending punchlines.

There is only one "problem" with the book. It seems so contemporary, that when I read such statistics as the price of gold, and they were off by hundreds of dollars, I had to remind myself that the book was indeed a half century old. The author died in 1994. I am sorry I cannot tell him how his writing shines. I plan to read other titles of his.

I have purchased many tractors over the last 25 years and I wish that I would have had this book all the while. The Nebraska tests evolved to provide the farmer with a standard of comparison to gauge his power requirements. Many manufactures prior to these tests boasted claims, but there was no real way to be sure. This book explains the need for this program and gives complete and comprehensive results for 'every' test. I find it a very interesting and informative authority of tractor power and reliability.

Charles H. Wendel's tireless research provides a very compelling volume of information for the farmer, collector, restorer, or enthusiast. Presented chronologically, the volume offers technical data on hundreds of makes and models, ranging from John Deere, International and Minneapolis-Moline, to lesser know and specialty tractors such as David Brown, Bates Steel Mule, and Big Bud.

Each tractor's technical information is accompanied by a photo (in some cases and actual photo of the tractor at the test lab). Data is incorporated directly into the text and the volume is very well edited.

The Nebraska tests were the one thing that standardized tractor ratings. This book is full of information that can be found in bits and pieces elsewhere,but is complete, from the testing lab to you,in this volume. A must have for the serious tractor hobbiest or professional. Lots of good pictures and info on even some of the rarest of tractors.

As I look forward to again attending The Prairie Festival at The Land again this year, I relished reading this book. It was fascinating reading the four authors' discussions of their work and their lives as they intersect their published writing.

This book also spoke to my interest in the Operation Migration project which is leading the way for the whooping cranes to again be wild and part of the land. John Price ponders and dissects the importance of place and the meaning of home and how we can follow Wendell Berry in really knowing about the place where we live.

"Though Heat-Moon's final quest for memory is a times awkward and self-conscious, it is for him essential. If America, if the human species, is to survive, then it must work actively to rejuvenate and reconstruct geographically specific, ancestral paradigms-deep maps-that move it toward a grand harmony of people and places."

Anyone who has seen the movie "Into the Wild" will resonate with Price's description of the effects of William Trogdon's decision to write "Prairy Erth" under the name William Least Heat-Moon.

"This rejuvenation begins with the individual journey, with the singular act of self-creation represented, perhaps, by William Trogdon's decision to rejuvenate the William Least Heat-Moon name. Whatever the consequences for the larger world, it was clear to me that the "Heat-Moon self" had led Trogdon to write one of the most important books on the prairie in American literature, a book that had had a profound impact on my own commitment to place. That fact alone suggested that what Heat-Moon had written about names was true, that they have he power to shape who we become in relation to the land around us. He writes:'Many tribal Americans believe that a person turns into his name, partakes of its nature in such a way that it is a mold the possessor comes to fill. When names lose their first meaning, as they have to most Americans of European descent, that mold becomes only a handle for others to move us around with.'"

This is an excellent regional history - social, biological and natural history - of the American plains.

John Price's voice is expansive and insightful, including his family connections to various spots in the middle plains states. It also is a look at just what it will take to ground him, via nature, in life. And, as a relatively recent husband, it is also a reflection on where that grounding will take place, and the give-and-take that will be involved with his wife.

As to the specifics of life on the plains, while finding much to celebrate once stereotypes are penetrated, stereotypes still have a fair degree of truth, as do cold, hard facts.

Racism and sexism can still be found in the Midwest, for example. They may be fading away, but they haven't disappeared.

Unfortunately, what has disappeared is untainted land. Take these eye-opening stats from Price's home state of Iowa, for example.

Just one-half of 1 percent of the land is in a pre-European natural state, the worst of any of the 50 states. Even worse, it is so farm-and-ranch chemical laden that only 20 percent of it can EVER be restored to that pre-contact state, it is estimated, citing Richard Manning's "Grassland."

Can we change to something more sustainable? That question, too, gets pondered in this book, and from different angles.

===

Two caveats on matters historical and botanical.

First, the Quapaw and Caddo lived in the southern plains, not the northern ones; second, the prairie did not extend from Appalachia all the way to the Rockies -- Illinois was the one cis-Mississippian state with significant prairie.

(from the Aug. 2004 issue of NCB News of Nebraska Center for the Book http://www.unl.edu/NCB/)

In the first sentence of the acknowledgements page, John Price states: "This is a memoir." But what follows in NOT JUST ANY LAND is not simple autobiography; it is more a combination of scholarly research, self-searching, and the time-honored method of using others' words to clarify his own thoughts about the region formerly known as prairie, what we call the Great Plains. This "memoir" is grassland exploration and ecology literature search at its best: Price cites over 65 authors in his bibliography.

Price traveled to South Dakota, Kansas and Iowa to discover what remained of the prairie, and in the process interviewed four writers whose books had spoken to him of the region. These writers - their varied views, stories and struggles - are the subjects of the four main chapters of the book: "Reaching Yarak: The Peregrinations of Dan O'Brien," "Not Just Any Land: Linda Hasselstrom at Home," "Native Dreams: William Least-Heat Moon and Chase County, Kansas," and "A Healing Home: Mary Swander's Recovery Among the Iowa Amish." Price's insightful questions and sense of humor make the book's subject highly accessible and memorable.

Great Plains enthusiasts, as well as those wanting to understand this often-overlooked region ("...where surprises can live and grow"), will delight in his extensive use of quotations from well-known writers such as Wendell Berry, Gretel Ehrlich, Wes Jackson, William Kittredge, Wallace Stegner and Terry Tempest Williams, to name just a few. Woven through the narrative in often lyrical passages is Price's own exploration of place, community, family history and an understanding of "...what it is that the land demands of us in our daily lives: the nature of responsibility."

Price, who grew up in north central Iowa, has written an important book about region that will be studied, discussed and enjoyed for years to come. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Fresh out of Yale, McClintock went to Montana in 1891 as an employee of the forest service. He ended up living with the Blackfoot tribe and learning their way of life. One elderly chief, Mad Dog, adopted him and taught him tribal culture and rituals so that someone would write them down. This book is the result.

The bison were gone and the Blackfoot economy lay in tatters. Still, McClintock's band was following his traditional seasonal movements, keeping the Sun Dance, and trying to live as they always had - - even as everyone realized that their way of life could not survive in the face of the white man.

McClintock serves as a very sympathetic scribe for the tribe. He was clearly a good listener. One Blood chief in Alberta told him that he had vowed never to speak with white men again, and yet he ended up adopting McClintock as a son. Because the tribe trusted him, he was admitted into a tribal society, invited to participate in rituals, and so forth.

Through most of the 500 pages in this book, McClintock takes a very fair-minded approach to both the Blackfoot and to white society. He often notes how tribal norms, such as sharing, are superior to the behavior of more "civilized" peoples. He takes both Christianity and tribal religions seriously.

Oddly, all this falls apart in the last chapter, where he endorses destructive policies that take away tribal land, convert the Indians to Christianity, and force assimilation on white terms. This chapter contradicts the tone of the rest of the book so deeply that I can't imagine what he was thinking when he wrote it.

Aside from that last chapter, this is a fascinating record of the tribe's traditions at the last possible moment that the tribe was still living its traditional life.

Walter McClintock was a young man who came to the Blackfeet Country at about the turn of the century. He was a trained scientist who could use a camera and he kept careful notes. This is not a romance novel nor anthropological interpretation. McClintock was simply there and made friends well enough to be accepted. He recorded stories, rituals (also took photos), and daily incidents as well as much natural history. He was really there and he is an honest and graceful reporter.

How could it be possible to adequately describe such a powerful -indeed, magical- account of a young man's time with the Blackfeet in the early twentieth century, a time when much of the Old Ways still lived among the Blackfeet people. I have owned or or another edition of The Old North Trail since 1970, and have ever since then been entranced by McClintock's unselfconscious limpid prose style, his descriptions of a summer snowstorm, or a grand encampment of the Blackfeet, the way Indian people in northern Montana prepared and stored food for the coming of winter, or the simple, deep, and everlastingly real relationship with a culture which was even at that late date still indescribably precious and beautiful. Both a superb travelog and a microscopically observed anthropological account of life with the Blackfeet, this book is an extended love letter to the Indian people with whom Walter McC lived. As I write this review I'm transported back to my early twenties, a California surfer just out of college, immersed in a hot deep bath, reading The Old North Trail at sunup in Inverness, Scotland, and forgetting where I was, so completely did this book cast its spell. This is one of the very, very few books with which I am still in love.

I read this beautiful book cover-to-cover in one sitting as I just could not put it down. I think the description might be a bit misleading as it makes the book sound like a sad lament of loss, when in fact it is a joyous celebration of life. "Phantom Limb"also puts life into perspective, and will hopefully alter yours--as it has mine.
Ms. Sternburg explores her relationship with her mother and father touchingly, as her tale weaves back and forth from the past to the present, revealing the delicate nature of the human condition. The story is written in searingly honest prose, each one a self-contained vignette that links together to form the memory of whole human lives. This book is not necessarily just for people coping with loss...it's much more than that. "Phantom Limb" does exactly what good literature should do: it transports the reader to another realm, and it's beauty will stay with you, long after you put the book down.

What a brilliant, heartbreaking, wise book. The central metaphor is haunting and unforgettable. Janet Sternburg, in her heart of hearts, is a true poet.

This story is mesmerizing and painfully real to anybody who has lost a parent to illness. It's beautifully told, without being overtly sentimental. Sternberg skillfully lets us enter her world as a daughter, a caregiver and a woman who is also dealing with the baggage of her own illness. You are with her every step of the way. It is rich in its telling and goes straight to the heart.

I also found the detail in which she describes being an advocate for her mother a fascinating study that can be useful to anyone that is put in the situation of navigating care for ourselves or someone else. Phantom Limb speaks to what so many of us have either faced or will have to go through as our parents age. Bravo!

This is a very insightful and passionate view of the game of golf. Suprisingly personal as well. I've been playing, studying, and reading about the game for over 35 years and this is one of the most original books I've read on golf. Mr. Brumer's views on life's experiences as they relate to golf will make you think about your own reasons for playing this game. His views on the playing and teaching of the game are based upon years of being exposed to some of its most original thinkers (Ben Doyle, Gregg McHatton, Bobby Clampett, etc). I don't believe Andy intended for this book to actually improve one's game but I can assure you - it will.

Andy Brumer created another masterpiece. He takes us to new places on and off the golf course. Great reading for those days that you are not teeing it up.

Andy has done it. There are lots of golf books. I was once told there are more books about golf than all the other sports books put together. The amazing thing is that so many of these golf books are the same. They just have different covers. Andy has succeeded in writing his second thoughtful and original golf book in less than a year. This is an outstanding accomplishment. To take advantage of all the work that Andy has done you need to read his book! You and your golf will be better because you did.

The Impact Zone: Mastering Golf's Moment of Truth

Woo! Robert Walser dishes out words like "lummox" and "dumb cluck" with a mastery that no other human author has ever approached. I promise. His shifts of tone have to be read to be believed. His work is more lively and present than any author I've ever encountered.

The plot of the story concerns a rascal-like fellow and his romantic interests. If you read for plot, that should be all you need to know.

The virtues of this book are too diverse to sum up, but here goes.

The Robber isn't a strictly straight-forward narrative, but there is a story arc that runs through it and which has a natural climax and conclusion. My favorite passage for example is a long stretch of text where the narrator speaks to the reader in second person ("you") and describes how to win over a lady performer who just impressed you in a music hall. I wish the book was printed with an index, because you can plant your blind finger down on any page and find Walser hilariously discussing some topic or other like that. (Other examples: modern education, platitudes, motorists, and different aspects of public behavior.) That might sound out of line, but it's never inappropriate because it's always spurred on by the main character's mentality and surroundings.

Walser possesses an extremely perceptive and imaginative understanding of social relations, and of conflicts of personality, which I might say is the main theme of the book. He's also acutely aware of his own shortcomings and anxieties, so that gets thrown into the mix too. Lastly, he brings a moving perspective to the most down-to-earth occurrences. These talents give life to all his other books too, for the record.

Walser writes with all kinds of interjections, and all kinds of short essay-like passages where he addresses some thesis, and all kinds of self-effacing double-takes where he humbles himself. But all of the digressions work perfectly, and cohere into a whole, the flow (in English translation for me, anyway) is spotless and fluid. Everything he says is perfectly inimitable, and precisely Walserian, yet unpredictable. He's the Thelonious Monk of literature.

This book is a tour de force. What else can I call it? Walser wrote Jakob Von Gunten which is pretty straight-forward, a few other novels that were either lost or destroyed, two novels that are finally being translated into English ("The Assistant" was released in July 2007, and "Geschwister Tanner" is in the works), and a huge amount of short prose pieces published in various places or not at all. The Robber is later and more developed than Jakob Von Gunten, and has the length of a novel which gives it a richness and scope that the short pieces can't manage (though Walser makes impressive achievements even in single-page stories). It's kind of nightmarish to consider that he wrote the few hundred pages of this book in micro-microscript on a few pieces of scrap paper that some fool could have accidentally rolled up and smoked.

This book blew apart my understanding of what literature can be and can achieve. And who an author can be, and who a person can be. Still, you should start with JAKOB VON GUNTEN because it's the best starting place-- don't be a bellyacher.

I also have to give applause to the translator Susan Bernofsky, because every passage of this book is impeccable and unique, which I assume means the translation is superb.

I'm going to provide an excerpt here.

"In wine lies something like a right to superiority. When I drink wine, I understand previous centuries; they too, I tell myself, consisted of things contemporaneous and the desire to find one's place among them. Wine makes one a connoisseur of the soul's vicissitudes. One feels great respect for everything, and for nothing at all. Wine shimmers with tact. If you are a friend of wine, you are also a friend of women and a protector of all that is dear to them. The relations, even the thorniest, that exist between man and woman unfold like blossoms from the depths of your glass. All the songs to wine that were ever composed ought to be acknowledged as justified. "For a Dätel, that's unsuitable," I was admonished not long ago in a certain house. Since then I have confined myself to gazing at this house from a distance, timidly and with a sensation of oddness. Dätel is the title for a soldier. In the military, you see, I was only a common soldier. Of course, this circumstance does me immeasurable harm. In this age of perspicacity, all things come under inspection, so why not, in particular, one's rank in the army? I see nothing amiss here."

10 stars. You know what to do.

In review of writers far worthier than I, and contemporaneous of Walser: Robert Musil said: Walser writes as "an ice-skater executes his long curves & figures...these little endlessnesses waft over into the void...as in the hours between a suicide's decision and final act(1914). The most Illuminated of all assessors of literary greatness, Walter Benjamin said (admittedly of Walser's anti-fairy tales of himself in drag of Cinderella and Snow White): "Walser begins where the fairy-tale leaves off"(1929). But none has equaled what Elias Canetti wrote as late as 1978, with an angry unmercy for all critics who live off other writer's wounds: Walser is 'The most camouflaged of all writers (who) never formulates his motives...his work is an unflagging attempt at hushing his fear...and that is why it is sinister (the work, not the words)...as he escapes everywhere before too much fear gathers in him...in order to save himself...his experience with the 'struggle for existence' takes him into the only sphere where that struggle no longer exists: the madhouse, the monastery of modern times."
This is Robert 'Robber' Walser's last novel written before his grand finale of silence upon admittance unto the mad houses of final quietude. Beyond even the beautiful miracle of Rilke's Elegies or Bruno Schulz's phantastics, it's as if a Henri Rosseau painting were stepped in upon by lovingly devoted thieves who only want to live there a while...I recall Aleister Crowley's words speaking of a friend's madness: "It was if a man had stepped outside of himself to go on a long walk". That is what happened, so they say, 'Robber Walser' Did upon completing this holy novella in the poetic excesses of his Blakean view of the world where all's Holy. Intermingled as it is, with his own Dostoyevskian Doppelganger & fleeting doves of the Holy Ghost; in one of the most intimate of doubles Literature's ever known. Here in these pages whispers the secret treasure of a Robber, a writer, & a Walker, all centered around 'one singular man' name of Robert Walser. The watercolour on the cover is by his brother, Karl Walser, circa 1894; they were close as a Theo to a Vincent in our Robber's heart. This is the only known photograph of Walser's Robber, who reminds me of a cross betwix Billy the Kid & Peter Pan? We cannot spiritually afford to give the 'plot' away as Walser's words are all about Freedom from the bondage of one's inner demons, and therefore costs an unpronounceable price beyond even American currencys can purchase, amen. For those without the right amount of time to dedicate to All Walser wrote, I would refer them to the Quay Brothers film: 'Institute Benjamenta'---which is a rare species of film indeed to capture the dream world of our hero 'Jakob Von Gunten' in cinematic black-n-white exposure. Of Walser's supposed 'Mental InStability', (however undersimplified) I feel his suffering comprises a beautiful exception TO suffering; a rare species of 'beautiful suffering' had from his own Superbly Sound Sensitivity to Sensations a great many regrettables shall most likely never become aware of without the Romance of a Robber such as Walser's being born along inside us...on a romantic lark such as this carefully pocketed jeweled compass is sure to lead its thieves far, far away, to where 'Here Be Dragons' is writ on old incunabular maps. One merely has to read Walser, so unlike the multitude of unstable geniuses one need not make the sign of the cross to ward off the evil peering from inside so many ingenious but dangerously depressive works. Inside Walser's heartrending Romantic prose his ever-active eternal spirit takes on alarming fleshly precedence though still omnipotent enough to take over the world dressed in cool sunglasses shading that evil eye; in luminous gowns made of 'white magical' tissue paper, all the better equipped to wipe away tears at the same time as reading. The Robber respectfully bows deeply before all that's worthy of beauty, including every woman ever born so graceful a creature, A-men? Walser never screams but shouts out to greet every overcautious reader who dares to tread his pages lovingly; he never runs but walks at an amazingly quick-pace through literature, town & city, and of course, the vast countryside that replaced words for Walser to wander in; falling down dead one Christmas day in the snow; & as William H. Gass so poetically envisioned him at the end, falling down upon a field: "smoothly white as writing paper". There is nothing in this book a Robber would pawn without an excess of tears hot enough to scald the vision & heart from which they were taken, so innocently, out of boundless admiration & unrestrainable worship! If you read only one writer or one book in all of Earthly existence, let it be by Robert Walser, a humble man with an inborn pride of thieves; who takes from his own rich Heart and gives Poetic alms to those poorer in spirit or in need of fellow grievance, commiseration, companionship, or simple celebration before those horrid if 'entertaining thoughts of suicide' are finally exorcised from the Book of Life. Walser's books are integral in every first-aid literary kit for bandaging burnt souls and crushed spirits. Each sentence is like a shot of hot fiery spirits to chase away throats sore from yelling all the time, and at the ones they love sadly screaming the most. The subtle irony of each paragraph is stretched across the boards of Literary history to flatten out the riddles & wrinkles of a Kafkian love of cosmically-inclined intrigues & double meanings. The mystery is deep as a sea full of Leviathans; and Walser navigates straight through the groping tentacles of mythological monsters to purge the heart of all its fictions. He is, along with Hoffman, Goethe, Kleist, one of the Magical Immortals in the realm of Germanic & Romantic Phantastics. And without equal whence it comes to the one & only artistic pre-requisite of mine: Sincerity!

The Robber is a guidebook for disappearance, an endlessly tangential map of the transient ghostliness of the ever-elusive self written by a gentleman who has politely bid farewell and stepped outside of his person. It is a precious hoot. It is a picaresque series of tiptoes around a goblin-infested forest. It is a shared narcissistic prism. It is a suite of rapid motions that spins in place. It is a needling delight, a frustrating pleasure.

Dear Walser has pulled out of thin air a labyrinth constructed of air.

Although I loved the Rough Riders movie on TNT, they got the character Buckey O'Neill wrong. This book will set you straight on a forgotten hero, who did more in 38 years than most men would do in a life time. Just how far would he have gone had he not been killed at Kettle Hill? The next time that I'm on Whiskey Row, I will give a toast to William Owen O'Neill. This is a great book.

Buckey O'Neill was a legendary lawman, a gallant soldier, and a Democrat when being one meant fealty to the flag and country. Even in a Republican state like Arizona Buckey O'Neill is a state hero - and much revered in Prescott.

This son of an Irish immigrant and Civil War Veteran risked death many times, chasing outlaws across the deserts and praries. If he hadn't recklessly strolled along the front lines facing the Spanish emplacements on San Juan Hill, O'Neill might very well had gone on to bigger and better things, including possibly being territorial governor. He was a particular favorite of Theodore Roosevelt's, who took his death very hard.

Dale Walker has already written a superb book about the "Rough Riders" in the "Boys of '98" and here he sets the record on the man who is arguably Arizona's favorite son - above and beyond t Goldwater, the Earps, and perhaps even John McCain. Only the late hero Pat Tillman's life and career might be as adventurous and as legendary as O'Neill's was.

Dale L. Walker's biography of O'Neill, one of the early West's most fascinating figures, is richly drawn, authoritative, and distinguished. O'Neill is best known as one of the Rough Riders of the Spanish-American War, but Walker meticulously depicts all the other facets of this legendary Arizonan. This is surely the standard work on O'Neill.

Kellie Wells' fiction stands out from most fiction being published today as exceptionally erudite, original, and provocative. She is a writer worth reading and attending to. Wells challenges us to reconsider "the heartland" as a place that is not predictable, mundane, nor worthy of being ignored. Wells also challenges readers to consider (or reconsider) the human condition, to experience (or re-experience) the potential of language, and to think (or re-think) narrative and how it reflects and represents reality. In fact her readers are enticed to contemplate the nature of what we consider reality. By switching point of view regularly, Wells builds a more comprehensive, intriguing view of her community (What Cheer, KS) than a single narrator would allow for. I admit that I wanted the story to stick with Ivy at first (a very compelling character). But by using multiple voices Wells helps round out the story and the community in an effective fashion reminiscent of the style of Louise Erdrich. Wells' command of the English language shines throughout, in a style that is compact and yet effervescent - as when she describes the bats in the first chapter. Her characters are moving without being maudlin or overdrawn. Wells' wry humor permeates the prose (reminiscent of Joy Williams), showing her fine ability to handle the complexity of her characters, whose lives and stories might otherwise overwhelm. Wells' prose exemplifies what the best prose provokes in readers - thoughtfulness, originality, and joy in language and storytelling.

I read this book in 45 ninutes, for it is the kind of story that keeps you reading anxiously from one page to the next. Kellie Wells has a naturalist's gift for describing human and animal behavior as though we were all of us plants, with the natural behavior cycle of the flora kingdom. She knows how to create suspense with a simple twist of phrase, and all of her characters, no matter how eccentric, speak from the heart, no matter if they are elderly or quite young. Most of all I enjoyed the plot in which a teenage boy has moped scars running up and down his legs, and he coinsults his best friend, Ivy, about if the scars are growing or not. Yes, literally growing like ivy. It seems to her that Duncan's scars are on the move and he resolves that he won't die without having sex with her. This delights and confounds her no end for, if truth be told, she has always been a little in love with neighjbor Duncan, referring to him as "boy poetry," with skin white as Elmer's Glue and gray green eyes you could drown in. It's a cute plot, fairly reminiscent at times of something Carson McCullers might have written.

I also liked Zero, the hairdresser with a fondness for movies with Merle Oberon and Dorothy McGuire, movies he thinks are "safe." Then there is Rachel, with a collection of 70s 45s including the Archies, Melanie, Cher and "Little Willy." No matter how fantastic Wells' storylines get, and they are pretty strange, Wells is able to keep her book "grounded" by the simple trick of using brand names, a la Stephen King. You can see in the example of the Elmers Glue above. Elsewhere a third grade savant, Ruby Tuesday Loomis, applies Bugs Bunny Band Aids, a neighbor pops Tums like Sweet Tarts, and in fact on every page you can see something of the sort. It's not just product placement either, it's Kellie Wells' incredible knowledge of just what needs buttressing in her fantastic fiction and what she can leave alone, knowing her readers will find their own way through her James Purdy like tales of What Cheer (the name of the tiny town they all live in, deep in the Midwest of Magic Realism.) Thank goodness for canny Nancy Zafris, the perdurable editor of Kenyon Review who suggested to Ms. Wells that she might as well expand an exquisite short story into a sort of novel.

"Skin" is a good name for it! Like Ayelet Waldman, Wells seems to know all about the difficulties of mother and daughter communication (Rachel and Ruby) and how to keep your faith together in a time of agnostic belief. Like Waldman, she shields her simple parables in the clothes of the contemporary, but never losing sight of the imagination nor its pull, like a dragonfly, towards moonlight. She even makes use of the resonance of her own name, dropping it like a stone, casually, into one of her beautiful sentences: "[Rachel's] eyes appeared dark in the diminishing light of the room, as though they were all pupil, sinking into her head, eyes dropped down dark wells, out of reach." Not every writer could do that--not even some of the best, like Nancy Zafris or Ayelet Waldman. Their names wouldn't pose as nouns.

Kellie Wells has a flowing style underscored by her twisting wordplay and startling juxtapositions. For those who say "Midwestern" as if it were a bad word, Skin might make you change your tune. The novel is a witty and poignant construction of life in the Kansas town of What Cheer, where the strange isn't so out-of-the-ordinary and it's amazing what you might suddenly find under your skin.

Part of my family settled in Kansas not far from Ise's in the same period. They never mentioned how hard the life was for most people. The majority of settlers, in fact, failed. Some died from disease or accidents, others simply discovered that farming was not as lucky or simple as they had been led to beleive. The climate was against them. Finances and the market were as much luck as anything. If they didn't draw the best of land as a homestead, it was pretty much a no-win situation.

Ise's plain spoken story illuminates the situation well. It's an eye-opener.

This book does a wonderfull job of depicting the struggles involved in raising a family & building a farm on the great plains. Just 3 or 4 generations ago many of our own families were living the same life as the Ise's.

You can get so lost in this story that you will laugh and cry with the family as they go through the years.through birth and death rain and shine you will enjoy every line of this book.I got a real feeling of what it must have been like to settle the country, and the early years of this century. now that we are leaving the 1900's in the space age learn what it started out like.