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7th out of 12 books
—
6 voters
Driftless
by
David Rhodes
David Rhodes's long-awaited new novel turns an unblinking eye on an array of eccentric characters and situations. The setting is Words, Wisconsin, an anonymous town of only a few hundred people. But under its sleepy surface, life rages. Cora and Graham guard their dairy farm, and family, from the wicked schemes of their milk co-op. Lifelong paraplegic Olivia suddenly start...more
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
September 1st 2008
by Milkweed Editions
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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 an author that...more
Early on I fell in love with Driftless but eventually traded that for mere fondness. It was one of those rare first acquaintances with an author that...more
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 over-describe p...more
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 over-describe p...more
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I'm reading this book for my senior seminar in english studies and, in my (almost) professional opinion: HOLY CRAP. It's nothing short of amazing. The characters are real and easy to relate to. The fictional town of Words, Wisconsin is so like the town I grew up in, in the same state. Rhodes has the most beautiful way with words. I can't even properly describe this novel to you, you just have to read it.
My self-directed tour of novels by Midwest authors and/ or set in the American Midwest took me to Words, Wisconsin, the location for David Rhodes's wry, folksy tale of lives intersecting in ways that are both mundane and beautiful. Having grown up in the Midwest, I know these people, whome Rhodes describes:
"...They lived in trailers, rented or heavily mortaged houses, and rooms above storefronts. They worked on construction crews, as field hands, janitors, clerks, part-time plumbers, unlicensed...more
"...They lived in trailers, rented or heavily mortaged houses, and rooms above storefronts. They worked on construction crews, as field hands, janitors, clerks, part-time plumbers, unlicensed...more
The strength of this novel is in the author's development of a character menagerie. With compact and sparse prose Rhodes not only describes these folks but puts you inside their heads. I grew up close to the area Rhodes describes and his descriptions of these rural people, particularly their socially inept conversations, created vivid and specific images. While the plot lacks the drive and speed of a Conroy or Rowling best-seller, the patient reader is rewarded for staying the course.
As a write...more
As a write...more
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, winning many ficti...more
The story behind the story is interesting; the author wrote critically acclaimed fiction in the 70's, winning many ficti...more
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. Most of the mai...more
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. Knocks don'...more
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
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. Fictional Thistlewaite County covers the Driftless area and also...more
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. Fictional Thistlewaite County covers the Driftless area and also...more
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 change and gro...more
Rhodes gets so much right, starting with these characters, who change and gro...more
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.
And, then, th...more
And, then, th...more
Driftless is simply a story about the lives of the people in Words, Wisconsin. There are challenges a small town faces, especially those drowning in farming politics like many in the mid-west. I found Driftless to focus more on the people who live in small towns. I think their relationships are hard to relate to unless you’ve lived in one. This story depicts every reason people choose a town like Words.
Rhodes writes very meticulously. He puts great thought into his characters and there is littl...more
Rhodes writes very meticulously. He puts great thought into his characters and there is littl...more
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 intimatel...more
Originally read this in 2009 and didn't know at the time that is kind of a sequel to "Rock Island Line". I loved the book which is actually the story of many quirky characters with the main character, July Montgomery, holding it all together. As I read this book originally, I fell in love with July. At that time I didn't know his background. Reading "Rock Island Line" was all his story and I almost immediately felt great empathy and love for his character.
Saying all of the above because reading...more
Saying all of the above because reading...more
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
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 like a...more
This isn't a book you want to hurry through and in that way the pace of the book is a bit like a...more
I just finished reading this book for the second time. I read it soon after it was originally published and decided to read it again after hearing the author read from his latest work, Jewelweed. I knew that many of the characters in Driftless appear again in Jewelweed and I wanted to have them fully developed in my memory before beginning to read David Rhodes' latest work.
My impressions of this novel are influenced by the fact that I grew up in a small town in Nebraska. In the Q & A section...more
My impressions of this novel are influenced by the fact that I grew up in a small town in Nebraska. In the Q & A section...more
Another Nook Friday Freebie, and I was NOT disappointed.
This book started out slow for me. I kept getting the numerous characters mixed up and I couldn't figure out how they were ever going to end up connected to each other. I figured it would be through some type of big tragedy. In a way, I was right, and in a way I was wrong. I like it when I am wrong, because I find most novels to be far too predictable. In real life, climaxes are often anticlimactic. So when this happens in a novel, rather t...more
This book started out slow for me. I kept getting the numerous characters mixed up and I couldn't figure out how they were ever going to end up connected to each other. I figured it would be through some type of big tragedy. In a way, I was right, and in a way I was wrong. I like it when I am wrong, because I find most novels to be far too predictable. In real life, climaxes are often anticlimactic. So when this happens in a novel, rather t...more
What a treat to stumble across a book by mistake and discover it's a great story! Set in a tiny town in Wisconsin named Words, the story revolves around a small set of characters - all very unique and interesting, and eccentric -- who are struggling to survive as farmers, parents, spouses, and caretakers. There's a lot going on this tiny community, but mostly it’s everyday life but life in a very small farming community, which was interesting to me. Drama ensues when the small town dairy farmer...more
David Rhodes was an up-and-coming writer who had won some success when he had a severe motorcycle accident in the late 70's which caused him to be paralyzed from the chest down. Now, years later, he has emerged again with the publication of this novel set in rural southwestern Wisconsin. He floats from character to character, creating beautiful descriptions of the scenery, the "feeling" of the small town, the interactions and daily lives and feelings and attitudes of the people -- and as one mov...more
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
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 think it has unive...more
This book may have special appeal for me since I know this part of Wisconsin well, but I also think it has unive...more
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 technological and...more
The book portrays the forgotten, driftless (and fictitious) town of Words, Wisconsin, which has been left behind by all of the technological and...more
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.
Each character's cri...more
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.
Each character's cri...more
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 story.
Some st...more
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 story.
Some st...more
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 haven't r...more
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.
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I loved this book because it not only had great character development, but it also was written beautifully. From the first page I was engaged in the beautiful poetic prose of David Rhodes.
The story is about many different people living in the driftless area of Wisconsin where the glaciers did not cover the land. Having travelled to this area of Wisconsin I found it both enchanting and beautiful.
David Rhodes cleverly weaves several plot lines involving different characters into one big landscape....more
The story is about many different people living in the driftless area of Wisconsin where the glaciers did not cover the land. Having travelled to this area of Wisconsin I found it both enchanting and beautiful.
David Rhodes cleverly weaves several plot lines involving different characters into one big landscape....more
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
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Plot or Not? | 4 | 40 | Aug 02, 2012 10:08pm |
As a young man, David Rhodes worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA in Writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1971, he published three acclaimed novels: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (1972), The Easter House (1974), and Rock Island Line (1975). In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him partially paralyzed. In 2008, Rhodes returned to the lite...more
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“We are all connected in ways we cannot even begin to fathom. Our lives unfold through each other and within each other. What one suffers, we all feel. What one does changes others forever.”
—
10 people liked it
“We are not separate, and I want you to know that. We are all part of one thing, and nothing good has ever passed or ever can pass away. There is no way out, but there is a way in, and when one person feels lonely like a ghost it touches us all.”
—
4 people liked it
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