David Rhodes (1946-2022) is the author of Painting Beyond Walls. As a young man, he worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA from the University of 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). In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him paraplegic. He continued writing, but did not publish again until 2008, with his celebrated novel, Driftless. Several years later, a sequel, Jewelweed, was published to wide acclaim. After another decade, he returned to American letters with this extraordinary novel, Painting Beyond Walls, his first to be set in the future.
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Books by David Rhodes
As approachable as it is profound in exploring the human condition and our shared need for community, this is a story for our times.
After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester must adjust to existence outside prison—as life in Words, Wisconsin, swirls around him. Welcoming readers back to the characters introduced in the beloved Driftless, this novel offers an unforgettable portrait of community in the heart of rural America.
Scorned and feared by their neighbors, Reuben Sledge’s family persists on the outskirts of Des Moines, near the edge of the City—a surreal place, from which no one who enters has ever returned. But when the woman Reuben loves ventures into the City, he sets off on a harrowing journey with an impossible goal: to find her and return.
Born and raised in the idyll of Sharon Center, Iowa—a life of four-leaf clovers, dogs, and fishing—July Montgomery is rocked by the tragic death of his parents, a blow that precipitates his bitter exile from Eden. After an escape to Philadelphia, July must decide whether to continue running, or hope for a paradise regained.
Home to a few hundred people yet absent from state maps, Words, Wisconsin, comes richly to life by way of an extraordinary cast of characters: a cantankerous retiree, a lifelong paraplegic, a former drifter, and many others. At once intimate and funny, wise and generous, this novel is an unforgettable story of contemporary life in rural America.
Brothers C and Sam left home after their father’s violent death. But upon their return to the Easter house—looming over the residents of Ontarion, Iowa—they create a lucrative business: The Associate, a group of men who perform services for a fee. When a rash of deaths occur, however, the townspeople of Ontarion begin to turn suspicious.
