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Dec 02, 2010

Adam rated it:

What is to be done when, in rural Wisconsin, a young farm family runs afoul of a corrupt and dangerous agribusiness corporation? Worry, too, about that cougar prowling the nearby farms, and the quirky woman preacher at the Quaker church having mystical visions in the woods, and the militia men skulking about the countryside with their machine guns.

Early on I fell in love with Driftless but eventually traded that for mere fondness. It was one of those rare first acquaintances with a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

Colette rated it:

I really, really, really wanted to like this book. Based on the summary, this by all means could have been my favorite book. Rising against agribusiness, esoteric theological musings, the Driftless Area? That's pretty much my life.

The characters were believable (for the most part), but the dialogue was not. The descriptive passages did nothing to bring the geography and the intricate nature of the coulees and ridges of southwest Wisconsin to life. The author suffers a tendency to ove More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Julie rated it:

I was helping a woman in her 70's at the library figure out the next book her book club should read. She was making me laugh because she had read almost everything out there, and had some sort of critical one-liner for almost every popular book. Before she left, she told me, "Read Driftless by David Rhodes. You won't regret it, it's a gem." I believed her, and I agree with her.
The story behind the story is interesting; the author wrote critically acclaimed fiction in the 70's More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 24, 2011

Terry rated it:

Bravo to David Rhodes! It has been a long time since I so thoroughly enjoyed a novel. Driftless is set in the unglaciated ("driftless") area of southwestern Wisconsin. Rhodes lives in rural Wisconsin and is pitch perfect in how he captures the sense of place and the types of characters who inhabit rural Wisconsin. I felt like I knew these people -- they are for the most part decent, hard working folk who don't make too many demands on others and want to live their lives in peace. More...

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Jun 19, 2011

Jon rated it:

An odd and very idiosyncratic book, mixing some terrible writing and clumsy plotting with some genuinely moving and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny episodes. I notice that a number of Goodreads reviewers gave up at about 50 pages, and I can understand why. The book starts very ponderously and the threads of plot only very slowly begin to appear after that point. Often the author seems to aim for the perfect, artful word but misses by a mile. You can't "siphon" an arm through a sleeve. K More...

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May 22, 2011

Craig rated it:

I'm giving up, about 1/4 of the way through. Maybe part of this is because I've been listening to this rather than reading it, but I just can't do any more. I loved all the characters and often loved the descriptive language, although the latter was too often *waaaay* over the top (like the five-minute internal monologue on the sight of a naked woman that had to have actually occurred in less than a second - dramatic license is fine, but that's ridiculous). And I never really got what I felt was More...

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Mar 07, 2011

Bill rated it:

3/7/2011 3:25 PM

BOOK REPORT
DRIFTLESS
BY
DAVID RHODES

Driftless is Rhodes' first published novel in 30 years. He was paralyzed from the chest down in a motorcycle accident. He was able to write during this period but the works he submitted were not published. Rhodes and his wife live in Wonewoc, Juneau County, Wisconsin. The county's population is 783.

Driftless is an area in southwest Wisconsin not touched by Pleistocene era glaciers. Fictio More...

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Jul 27, 2010

ICPL added it

When The Color Purple came out in 1982, a reviewer noted how uncommon it was for a characters in a book to get happier as the story went on. Stories need conflict, and this usually involves characters suffering. This year’s All Iowa Reads selection, Driftless, is another book where, people’s lives improve, often in surprising ways, like the very religious invalid who finds herself on a date with a hoodlum at a dogfight.

Rhodes gets so much right, starting with these characters, who More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 21, 2010

ICPL added it

I keep my eyes open for books set in the midwest which is why I was drawn to the most recent winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, Driftless by David Rhodes. I got more than I was looking for. First of all, a very intriguing author story. David Rhodes is a 1971 UI Writers Workshop grad. He published three books between 1972 and 1975. In 1977 he was injured in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. This is his first book published in thirty years.
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Mar 20, 2011

Gabe rated it:

A great book. The landscape Rhodes describes is my landscape (on the Minnesota side), and the town he describes is where my family comes from (on the Minnesota side). This book feels very "true." One of the reviewers on the book mentioned that it's in the American Gothic tradition, which I agree with, and that makes it even better. It definitely falls snugly in line with works by Rolvaag, Cather, and Agee. It is full of ideas. Rhodes understands the worldviews of each of his characters More...

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Feb 09, 2011

Nancy rated it:

I have decided that I really like books about small town America. They often provide insight into a small group of inter-connected people whose lives overlap in a myriad of ways. This book is based in Wisconsin and is about a group of farmers and their Amish and small town neighbors. As they enter and exit one another's lives they show the difference a little humanity can make. There were times I wished I had not been listening so I could back up and reread parts that will forever be a wonder to More...

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Jul 15, 2010

marcus rated it:

If you want to understand the make up of a small, dying, mid-western town this wouldn't be a bad place to start. In the prologue Rhodes writes that it took him ten years to write this book because it took him that long to get to know some of his characters. And that is sort of the way it is in a small town where many of the most interesting folks are the hardest to get to know, or at least know well.
This isn't a book you want to hurry through and in that way the pace of the book is a bit l More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 08, 2010

Kathrina rated it:

4 1/2 stars, really. In the author interview at the back of this edition, Rhodes explains how the geography of place defines the characters, who they are, what they do, and what they believe. I live not too far from where this novel takes place, and though I feel I'd make lots of different choices from the ones his characters make, their choices are true. This is bible belt country, but this region also harbors many skeptics, and Rhodes invites both, all, views of faith -- in God, god, and human More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2010

Deborah rated it:

Rhodes has created characters you grow to love because although they seem idiosyncratic at first, you begin to realize how much all of us have in common, how much these old-fashioned, self-reliant, naive rural people are like anyone else, no matter how rich, urban or sophisticated. The several story lines intertwine and pick up the pace pretty quickly with humor, suspense and tragedy.

This book may have special appeal for me since I know this part of Wisconsin well, but I also thin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 10, 2009

Patrick rated it:

David Rhodes named his book, Driftless, after the Driftless Area, which comprises Southwestern Wisconsin, Northwestern Illinois, Northeastern Iowa, and Southeastern Minnesota, and is bereft of sediment or glacial drift left behind as the last ice age’s glaciers receded into Canada. And both the novel’s topography and that of its characters reflect this.

The book portrays the forgotten, driftless (and fictitious) town of Words, Wisconsin, which has been left behind by all of the techno More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 12, 2011

Stewart rated it:

Wow. No, really.

I was surprised how easily the characters in this book earned my love and respect. I usually need time to bond with characters, choosing long-running series to give me time to let each person become part of me. Driftless, a collection of short vignettes concerning people living in or near Words, Wisconsin, is so powerfully written that I needed almost no time at all before wanting to cheer these people on toward the growth and change they so desperately need.

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Mar 01, 2010

Kathie rated it:

Driftless was written by a lover of words--it's chock full of rich and insightful characterizations of people and their surroundings, lending a warmth and depth to people who at first glimpse might seem plain and stoic. This is my kind of wordiness.

Some situations in the book strain credulity just a bit, almost entering the realm of magical realism. I'm slightly less enthusiastic about these aspects of the book, but I'm willing to leave my reality at the door for the sake of a good s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Cee rated it:

This novel is really a collection of short stories about a group of people living in a rural Wisconsin town called "Words". One of the major characters, and to me, one of the most likeable, is a farmer named July Montgomery who lives a lonely life after tragedy took his wife from him, but he fills that gap by becoming something of a touchstone to his neighbors. Apparently, this character has appeared in the author's previous books, written decades ago, quite acclaimed and, I'm afraid I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

eb rated it:

The language is old-fashioned and the plot slow-moving, but this novel is peopled with fascinating, believable characters, and I was transported by the midwestern setting. Two weeks after finishing, I'm still thinking about Violet, the invalid sister, and her fascination with dog fights.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2010

Nanette rated it:

Lyrical, insightful and very moving novel from an under-appreciated Wisconsin writer. After some initial literary successes with his earlier novels, Rhodes stopped writing 20 something years ago after a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed. When a new fan of his books contacted him to ask why he stopped writing, he took another look at the novel he'd been working on, and Driftless is the result. The story place in a small, western Wisconsin agricultural community. The characters come across, f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 09, 2009

Janne rated it:

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, but maybe the fact that the writer is based in Wisconsin and the story focuses on people leaving - and farming - in an area close to where I live got my interest. The book is made of many short chapters, each about a different character. I found myself deeply involved and interested on the character's lives. The people are quirky, but portrayed with much sympathy. There is a bit of everything: a couple battling with an evil corporation More...

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Oct 18, 2009

John rated it:

Saw David Rhoades at the Wisconsin Book Festival. He said a several of wonderful things that helped my understanding of the book.

First the title is obviously about the interesting area of Wisconsin (& other states) where I live. But it is also about July finally stopping his drifting from the previous books and settling in Words. That sure makes me want to read "Rock Island Line".

Second "Words" is his comment on the post modern theory that fiction is a More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2011

Christine rated it:

Somewhere, someone engrained in me: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

And I agree with this, but I also want to tell people what I think about the book Driftless - which I didn't like - as much as I want to tell people about books I do like. It is also hard for me as a writer to criticize other writers. I know how that feels, but then again, I know I should take praise as seriously as I take criticism, which is not very for either. If criticism feels rig More...

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Sep 03, 2009

Jspedal rated it:

I truly enjoyed this book. The story is written by a Wisconsin native and takes place in Words, Wisconsin, a town too small to be included on a map. David Rhodes does a great job of describing the characters in this book and I could relate in some way to each of them. They remind me of people I have met throughout my life.
Each character is introduced in the beginning of the book and then their lives are intertwined through the remainder of the book. The end result is a story about a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2011

Becky rated it:

July Montgomery - hitchhikes into the town of small, unchanging, town of Words, Wisconsin and connects with the people - being a friend to the neighbor farmer and his wife who is finding out about the dairy company cheating him, their kids saved from a blizzard. - to the sensuous girl who hates her factory job and love singing - to the man who runs a car repair shop, who loves the new pastor- to the Amish - to Rusty who hires the Amish to help get his house ready for the in-laws and who's bar More...

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Feb 13, 2011

Kate added it

I just finished reading this book and I’m in awe of Rhodes work. I’ve tried to explain why I love this book and my words seem so thin and meager as I try to describe it. The best that I can come up with is that Rhodes feels like a master painter/weaver/sculptor. He paints the landscape and all its lusciousness, he weaves the characters together to form patterns that I didn’t know could exist and he chisels away excess words until he’s distilled it all down to a form that leaves me staring in awe More...

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Jan 09, 2010

Jon rated it:

As a person who grew up and lived in the driftless area of the country, specifically in Wisconsin, I found that David Rhodes did an excellent job of crafting characters, locales and situations that I was familiar with. I found this to be a wonderful book, less about adventure or conflict and more about the people that live in this region. Certainly this is not a fast-paced thriller, but a slow and steady journey through one of the most beautiful areas of the United States with some of the most More...

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Dec 07, 2011

Lois rated it:

This book is a keeper! David Rhodes takes us inside the minds and lives of people who keep to themselves, mind their own business, and generally try to do the right thing--people you might otherwise fail to appreciate because they are so self-contained. It felt like sinking into a way of life that I almost forgot existed, but he goes deeper into human motivation and pain, musings about the meaning of life and death and God and family. This isn't a religious book, but the spirituality is that of More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Josh rated it:

The writing in this book is absolutely beautiful. David Rhodes' prose is really quite striking earning this book 2 stars instead of one.

All the beautiful prose in the world could not keep me interested in this book, however. This first 20% of the book is all new character introduction. Each new chapter centered around a new character and by the time we hit double digits I was wondering what happened to the first character I met and then wondering why I should care since I didn't rea More...

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Dec 30, 2010

Robert rated it:

The measure of a novel's perfection is the writer's ability to create a fictional dream where the reader enters a state of timelessness. The reality of this life slips away and one becomes immersed in a vivid world created through words. David Rhodes achieves this in his brilliant novel, "Driftless." His narrative and dialogue are impeccable,the plot is imaginative, the characters are quirky, unpredictable, and as all humans--flawed. As a person who was born and raised in New York, I f More...

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