Driftless

Driftless
Fiction

Driftless

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
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In “the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years” (Chicago Tribune), David Rhodes offers a fascinating and entirely unsentimental portrait of a town apparently left behind by the march of time.

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. Among them, a middle-aged couple guards the family farm from the mendacious schemes of their milk co-operative; a lifelong paraplegic suddenly regains the use of her legs, only to find herself crippled by fury at her sister and caretaker; a woman of conflicting impulses and pastor of the local Friends church stumbles upon an enlightenment she never expected; a cantankerous retiree discovers a cougar living in his haymow, haunting him like a childhood memory; and a former drifter forever alters the ties that bind a community together. As a whole and independently, “each of these stories glimmers” (New Yorker).

At once intimate and funny, wise and generous, Driftless is an unforgettable story of contemporary life in rural America.

Keywords: 
blizzard, brothers, casino, cheating, childhood memories, community, contemporary fiction, cougar, country fic-tion, couple, courage, drifter, emotions, epiphany, farm, friendship, gambling, husband, invalid, july montgomery, lit fic, literary fiction, locals, love, machinations, marriage, middle age, Midwest, militiamen, milk cooperative, mugging, musician, parolee, pastor, psychological fiction, retiree, romance, rural fiction, rural lit, siblings, sisters, small town fiction, spiritual, village life, widower, wife, wisconsin, words
ISBN:
9781571310682
Publish Date: 
05/05/2009
Pages: 
456
Size: 
8.5 × 5.5 × 1.06 in
Weight: 
20.5 oz
Author

David Rhodes (1946-2022) is the author of Painting Beyond Walls. As a young man, he worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa.

Praise and Prizes

Blog Post

Milkweed Staff – 12/20/2022

All of us here at Milkweed Editions are saddened by David Rhodes' passing, and profoundly grateful to have crossed paths...