The Books of the States: Iowa (7 electoral votes)
Iowa is in an odd place when you're pinning down writers and books on the map. On one hand, it's one of the literary centers of the country, thanks to the Iowa Writers Workshop and the dozens and dozens of significant writers who have studied and/or taught there. But how many of those have written books that could be considered "Iowa" books? (There are relatively few romans a clef about the Workshop, as far as I
know, for which I guess we should be thankful--although the
most-discussed story in Nam Le's recent collection, The Boat, makes
something new of that gambit.)) For nearly all of them, Iowa seems to be a place where you go to reflect on other places. But not all of them: the two novelists most associated recently with the state were longtime faculty members who came from elsewhere and went native, writing Pulitzer-winning novels about their adopted state: Marilynne Robinson at the University of Iowa and Jane Smiley at Iowa State. (My beloved Ms. Robinson has long-since been prospectively engraved on the upcoming Idaho quarter, so I'll give the Iowa honor to Smiley.)
With all that writerly traffic in and out of Iowa City, I still found that the Hawkeye State's seven slots filled rather slowly, although the final cuts, as always, were painful. Let me know what I've missed or slighted, Iowans (adopted or otherwise):
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Gilead, lovely in its own right, grew with the appearance of Home this year, as its own existence expanded Home. Ideally you'd include them both here, but I prefer Gilead, for its relative expansiveness and sense of history. It needs Home less than Home needs it.
- The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley. I'll admit, this is an idiosyncratic pick for Smiley: the obviously Iowan books of hers are A Thousand Acres and Moo, and I wouldn't blame anybody for preferring them. But of all the styles that Smiley has eagerly tried on in her career, the one that's made her a favorite with me are her early novellas, Ordinary Love and Good Will and, especially, the long title story in The Age of Grief, a tale of a marriage (in an unnamed city) between two dentists that I read long before I was married but that felt like one of the truest glimpses of marriage I'd see (and still does, well into my own). It's the closest thing we have to an American version of "The Dead."
- Rock Island Line by David Rhodes: Brought back into print this year (along with a new sequel, Driftless), after Rhodes, paralyzed in a motorcycle accident soon after it came out, had fallen into obscurity after this novel and two others won great acclaim back in the '70s. Which recalls perhaps the other best-known resurrected book from the '70s in recent years--and another Iowa book--Dow Mossman's The Stones of Summer, the subject of the documentary, Stone Reader.
- Ubik by Philip K. Dick: Well, I have to confess that even though the sad and colossally unsettling Ubik is one of my inner circle of favorites (see this somewhat out-of-date list), I had forgotten that much of the story takes place--to the extent that you can say that about this tale--in Des Moines. But that's all I need!
- The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene [Mildred Wirt Benson]: Late in life (very late in life, when she was still writing for the Toledo Blade in her 90s), Benson found a little fame when it was revealed that she was the pen behind the name of Carolyn Keene for nearly all of the first 25 Nancy Drew mysteries, which she started writing under commission soon after she moved to Ohio from her home state of Iowa (and which were later tidied up in revised versions). This one, number two in the series, was her own favorite, and this facsimile edition includes the original text.
- Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella: This Canadian writer found in Iowa cornfields his perfect dreamland, which he returned to in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.
- The Folks by Ruth Suckow: I'm flying blind even more than usual on this 1934 novel, but I'm intrigued, both by the fact that there's an active Ruth Suckow Memorial Association (and blog!) in Cedar Falls and by the only Amazon customer review, which argues--well enough for me to want to read it for myself--that it should be considered a Great American Novel alongside Hawthorne, Twain, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.
More: Grant Wood (already on the real quarter), Jorie Graham, Bill Bryson, David Rabe, Susan Glaspell, Curtis Harnack, MacKinlay Kantor, Max Allan Collins, and John Irving's Water-Method Man. And, yes, Robert James Waller. --Tom
aging lit major on November 19, 2008 at 05:32 AM
I'm going to toss in an obscure one, but it is saturated with Iowa: Uncle John's Original Bread Book. John Rahn Braue's German father launched a once well known bakery in Iowa, and the younger Braue collected a considerable number of bread recipes and memories of the bakery in this book. I was given a copy thirty years ago and still use it regularly.
on November 20, 2008 at 10:24 AM
you're forgetting Jesus' Son, by Denis Johnson. It's absolutely an Iowa book, and a seedy meth-head vision of Iowa City you don't get elsewhere.
Tom on November 20, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Great point--I love Jesus' Son, but had it set aside for Arizona (maybe because Beverley Home is the story I remember best). It's good enough that maybe it should get two states...
KristiC on November 20, 2008 at 01:56 PM
I couldn't agree more that Jane Smiley is at her best in novella form--'Ordinary Love and Good Will' is an amazing book. Why don't more people write novellas?
KristiC on November 20, 2008 at 01:56 PM
I couldn't agree more that Jane Smiley is at her best in novella form--'Ordinary Love and Good Will' is an amazing book. Why don't more people write novellas?