On All Sides Nowhere (Bakeless Prize) |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Idaho History > Item 193
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On All Sides Nowhere (Bakeless Prize)
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by William Gruber
Sales Rank: 1233446
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List Price: $12.00
$12.00
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 144 pages
Published by: Mariner Books August 15, 2002
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0618189297
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0618189298
Book Dimensions:
8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
Weighs: 5.6 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
In 1972 Gruber left his job as a New York journalist for graduate school at the University of Idaho, where in simplicity and solitude, he and his wife would homestead their forty acres in rural Alder Creek. At first, their days "were full of emptiness," Gruber marveled; he could hear "traces of conversation" nearly half a mile away and, standing on his porch, listen to the falling snow. But even if the population was sparse, neighbors knew each others' business and were remarkably tolerant of each others' idiosyncrasies. People distrusted hippies, but "hippies were always somebody other than the human being they were talking to." As Gruber settles in, he meditates on the aesthetics of junked cars ("a peasant's version of garden statuary"), the Zen of felling trees or the dangers of the chain saw, which with "diminutive innocence" was "forever looking for ways to get you." Now an English professor at Emory University, Gruber is so confident in his writing that he doesn't hesitate to reach for an unusual term (e.g., simulacrum, tessellation, bricolage, lipogram) if it makes his point more precisely. Nor does he have qualms with enjoying the dated idiom of his rural neighbors, with their iceboxes, davenports and parlors. While Gruber's writing is a gift, even better are the simple but profound truths he shares: "We sometimes forget that the most important thing we can do with our lives is to make them models for somebody else to follow." Gruber's Idaho is like the Troy first and famously uncovered by 19th-century German archeologist Schliemann: in actuality, there isn't a whole lot there, but the author makes it seem full and magical, all the same.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ostensibly an urbanite's back-to-the-land memoir, Gruber's reflections quickly dispense with nature-admiring panegyrics. Setting up shop in the 1970s in Idaho's northern neck was arduous work for English grad-student Gruber and his wife, since they were short on cash and had no access to running water, spare car parts, or professional builders. In this do-it-yourself world, Gruber essays how he soon became disabused from looking down on inhabitants' ramshackle cabins and junked cars. Although the structures were shabby, he understands how his distant neighbors harbored plans of improvement, and although the plans may have been grandiose and ill-grounded in reality, they often were a sign of optimism. These schemes animated the community gossip network, creating bartering, borrowing, and commiserating, and the personalities Gruber met are efficiently and honestly portrayed--no wonder his work won a prize from the annual Vermont Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. A discerning depiction of a particular time and place and the age-old urge to move west. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
Having tromped around the woods, towns, and backroads of Northern Idaho while growing up, I was delighted to have those memories pulled out of deep memory by Bill Gruber's delightful book. "On All Sides Nowhere" chronicles a place and culture seldom deemed worthy of prose. Gruber transforms what might seem seedy (yards filled with junked cars, a skillful but alcoholic handyman, houses continually under contruction) into respectful depictions of everyday life in this hard-scrabble part of the Pacific Northwest. Unlike many writers, Gruber doesn't choose to focus on himself or his family; they are simply the vehicle that allows him insights into the characters around them.
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On All Sides Nowhere (Bakeless Prize)
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Price: $12.00
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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