Ian Frazier
author profile
gender
male
place of birth
Cleveland, Ohio, The United States
genre
Nonfiction
about this author
Ian Frazier (b.1951) is an American writer and humorist. He is best known for his 1989 non-fiction history Great Plains, and as a writer and humorist for The New Yorker.
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avg rating: 3.82
| 880 ratings
| 147 reviews
| 16 distinct works
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2 fans
More books by Ian Frazier…
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On the Rez by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.79 — 231 ratings — published 2000 2 editions |
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Great Plains by Ian Frazier avg rating 4.01 — 163 ratings — published 1989 6 editions |
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Gone to New York: Adventures in the City by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.76 — 86 ratings — published 2005 3 editions |
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Coyote V. Acme by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.53 — 58 ratings — published 1996 3 editions |
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Family by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.93 — 43 ratings — published 1994 3 editions |
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Dating Your Mom by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.61 — 41 ratings — published 1986 4 editions |
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The Best American Travel Writing 2003 by Ian Frazier , Jason Wilson avg rating 3.75 — 32 ratings — published 2003 3 editions |
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Lamentations of the Father: Essays by Ian Frazier avg rating 3.50 — 28 ratings — published 2008 3 editions |
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The Best American Essays 1997 by Ian Frazier , Robert Atwan avg rating 4.29 — 17 ratings — published 1997 2 editions |
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Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody by Ian Frazier avg rating 4.27 — 15 ratings — published 1988 3 editions |
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"America is a leap of the imagination. From its beginning, people had only a persistent idea of what a good country should be. The idea involved freedom, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness; nowadays most of us probably could not describe it a lot more clearly than that. The truth is, it always has been a bit of a guess. No one has ever known for sure whether a country based on such an idea is really possible, but again and again, we have leaped toward the idea and hoped. What SuAnne Big Crow demonstrated in the Lead high school gym is that making the leap is the whole point. The idea does not truly live unless it is expressed by an act; the country does not live unless we make the leap from our tribe or focus group or gated community or demographic, and land on the shaky platform of that idea of a good country which all kinds of different people share.
This leap is made in public, and it's made for free. It's not a product or a service that anyone will pay you for. You do it for reasons unexplainable by economics--for ambition, out of conviction, for the heck of it, in playfulness, for love. It's done in public spaces, face-to-face, where anyone is free to go. It's not done on television, on the Internet, or over the telephone; our electronic systems can only tell us if the leap made elsewhere has succeeded or failed. The places you'll see it are high school gyms, city sidewalks, the subway, bus stations, public parks, parking lots, and wherever people gather during natural disasters. In those places and others like them, the leaps that continue to invent and knit the country continue to be made. When the leap fails, it looks like the L.A. riots, or Sherman's March through Georgia. When it succeeds, it looks like the New York City Bicentennial Celebration in July 1976 or the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. On that scale, whether it succeeds or fails, it's always something to see. The leap requires physical presence and physical risk. But the payoff--in terms of dreams realized, of understanding, of people getting along--can be so glorious as to make the risk seem minuscule."
— Ian Frazier (On the Rez)
This leap is made in public, and it's made for free. It's not a product or a service that anyone will pay you for. You do it for reasons unexplainable by economics--for ambition, out of conviction, for the heck of it, in playfulness, for love. It's done in public spaces, face-to-face, where anyone is free to go. It's not done on television, on the Internet, or over the telephone; our electronic systems can only tell us if the leap made elsewhere has succeeded or failed. The places you'll see it are high school gyms, city sidewalks, the subway, bus stations, public parks, parking lots, and wherever people gather during natural disasters. In those places and others like them, the leaps that continue to invent and knit the country continue to be made. When the leap fails, it looks like the L.A. riots, or Sherman's March through Georgia. When it succeeds, it looks like the New York City Bicentennial Celebration in July 1976 or the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. On that scale, whether it succeeds or fails, it's always something to see. The leap requires physical presence and physical risk. But the payoff--in terms of dreams realized, of understanding, of people getting along--can be so glorious as to make the risk seem minuscule."
— Ian Frazier (On the Rez)
