David R. Pichaske's Books

Rooted

Seven Midwest Writers of Place

By: David R. Pichaske

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Rooted

Seven Midwest Writers of Place

By: David R. Pichaske

David Pichaske has been writing and teaching about midwestern literature for three decades. In Rooted, by paying close attention to text, landscape, and biography, he examines the relationship between place and art. His focus is on seven midwestern authors who came of age toward the close of the twentieth century, their lives and their work grounded in distinct places: Dave Etter in small-town upstate Illinois; Norbert Blei in Door County, Wisconsin; William Kloefkorn in southern Kansas and Nebraska; Bill Holm in Minneota, Minnesota; Linda Hasselstrom in Hermosa, South Dakota; Jim Heynen in Sioux County, Iowa; and Jim Harrison in upper Michigan. The writers' intimate knowledge of place is reflected in their use of details of geography, language, environment, and behavior. Yet each writer reaches toward other geographies and into other dimensions of art or thought: jazz music and formalism in the case of Etter; gender issues in the case of Hasselstrom; time past and present in the case of Kloefkorn; ethnicity and the role of the artist in the case of Blei; magical realism in the case of Heynen; the landscape of literature in the case of Holm; and the curious worlds of academia, best-selling novels, and Hollywood films in the case of Harrison. The result, Pichaske notes, is the growing away from roots, the explorations and alter egos of these writers of place, and the tension between the “here” and “there” that gives each writer's art the complexity it needs to transcend provincial boundaries. Quoting generously from the writers, Pichaske employs a practical, jargon-free literary analysis fixed in the text, making Rooted interesting, readable, and especially useful in treating the literary categories of memoir and literary essay that have become important in recent decades.

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383

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University of Iowa Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

158729673X

ISBN 13

9781587296734

The Pigeons of Buchenau and Other Stories

By: David R. Pichaske

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The Pigeons of Buchenau and Other Stories

By: David R. Pichaske

Pichaske’s stories take us from the halls of academe to small-town Minnesota to a little village on the edge of the Bavarian National Forest. Speaking in voices of a farmer right out of Deliverance, a disgruntled Professor of English, and his dog Harley, Pichaske says what many people think, but few have the courage to say. While he is especially strong on details of history, place, and language, the hard-nosed wisdom his narrators offer transcends place and even time. From "Daisy": Look—there are always dreams. And in dreams the ultimate purity: by now she may be fat and forty, stretch marks, grey hair, three kids. The ravages of time, you know? Look at you and me: not exactly the bright and rising stars we were twenty years ago, eh? But in dreams, the years are invisible. People never age in dreams.

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Texas A&M University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1680030728

ISBN 13

9781680030723

Oneota Flow

The Upper Iowa River and Its People

By: David S. Faldet

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Oneota Flow

The Upper Iowa River and Its People

By: David S. Faldet

Whether profiling the chief of the last hunter-gatherers on the river, an early settler witnessing her first prairie fire and a modern wildlife biologist using fire to manage prairies, the manager of the Granger Farmer’s Co-op Creamery, or a landowner whose bottomlands are continually eaten away by floods, Faldet steadily develops the central idea that people are walking tributaries of the river basin in which they make their homes. Faldet moves through the history of life along the now-polluted Upper Iowa, always focusing on the ways people depend on the river, the environment, and the resources of the region. He blends contemporary conversations, readings from the historical record, environmental research, and personal experience to show us that the health of the river is best guaranteed by maintaining the biological communities that nurture it. In return, taking care of the Upper Iowa is the best way to take care of our future.

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Page Count

258

Publisher

University of Iowa Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1587298368

ISBN 13

9781587298363

The Farmers' Game

Baseball in Rural America

By: David Vaught

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The Farmers' Game

Baseball in Rural America

By: David Vaught

A journey through the national pastime’s roots in America’s small towns and wide-open spaces: “An absorbing read.” —The Tampa Tribune In the film Field of Dreams, the lead character gives his struggling farming community a magical place where the smell of roasted peanuts gently wafts over the crowded grandstand on a warm summer evening, just as the star pitcher takes the mound. In The Farmers’ Game, David Vaught examines the history and character of baseball through a series of essay-vignettes—presenting the sport as essentially rural, reflecting the nature of farm and small-town life. Vaught does not deny or devalue the lively stickball games played in the streets of Brooklyn, but he sees the history of the game and the rural United States as related and mutually revealing. His subjects include nineteenth-century Cooperstown, the playing fields of Texas and Minnesota, the rural communities of California, the great farmer-pitcher Bob Feller, and the notorious Gaylord Perry. Although—contrary to legend—Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball in a cow pasture in upstate New York, many fans enjoy the game for its nostalgic qualities. Vaught’s deeply researched exploration of baseball’s rural roots helps explain its enduring popularity.

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Page Count

367

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421408333

ISBN 13

9781421408330

Book's by David R. Pichaske

Rooted

Rooted

The Pigeons of Buchenau and Other Stories

The Pigeons of Buchenau and Other Stories

Oneota Flow

Oneota Flow

The Farmers' Game

The Farmers' Game

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