A Step From Death by Larry Woiwode (9781582433738)
Larry Woiwode Release Date: 24 Oct 2007 Format: Hardcover Pages: 272 Category: Memoirs Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9781582433738 ISBN-10: 1582433739
Larry Woiwode's literary fame began with his first novel, the 1969 classic "What I'm Going to Do, I Think," and continued unabated through his brilliant 2000 memoir "What I Think I Did." In this deeply affecting follow-up to the latter, Woiwode addresses his son as heir to his emotional interior. With vibrant wordcraft and a poetic sensibility, Woiwode begins his story by relating a near-death experience with a malfunctioning hay baler -- the kind of mistake that can kill a novice farmer. This episode is the first skein in a rich tapestry of memories, from colorful snippets of Woiwode's time in New York as a young writer working with the late, great William Maxwell, to his days as a young father, husband, and teacher trying to scrape enough together to buy a ranch in western North Dakota, and finally to the prospect of an empty nest and the step from death that he finds rapidly approaching.