Subscribe
Dear Reader,
A faltering marriage, four children (one severely autistic), a job as a pipefitter, a mortgage: all markers of Joe Blair's life -- none of which he expected when he was young. In vivid, muscular prose, Blair owns up to his mislaid plans and impulsive choices in his ultimately redemptive story, By the Iowa Sea, a Spring 2012 selection of the Discover Great New Writers program.
It's hard to chose a single scene from Blair's memoir, but we'll start here:
"Everything was new because our love was new and each place seemed like it was more beautiful that the one before. North Dakota was beautiful because it was so flat and clear and because we had never seen anything like it before. And no one could doubt the beauty of Minnesota, the deep pine forests and glacial lakes. But none of this prepared us for Iowa. Nothing was as beautiful as Iowa. In my art appreciation class at UMass Lowell, I remember thinking that Grant Wood must have smoked some powerful weed in order to paint landscapes the way he did, with his roly-poly hills and lollipop trees, I didn't know that such a landscape could exist. . . .We had no way of knowing how things would turn out. The four children. The diagnosis of autism for our third son, Michael. And everything thereafter. Going on and on. It's hard to believe, now, that anyone could inspire so much passion in me as Deb did when we were young. That two people could just get on a bike like that and go. Without jobs. Without much money. Without anything really. Except the desire to go."
Cheers, Miwa
Miwa Messer is the Director of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program, which was established in 1990 to highlight works of exceptional literary quality that might otherwise be overlooked in a crowded book marketplace. Titles chosen for the program are handpicked by a select group of our booksellers four times a year. Click here for submission guidelines.
Email
Print
Share
A controversial sensation in Norway, A Man in Love is the second book of six in the series, detailing Knausgaard’s separation from his wife, his move to Stolkholm and the dogged pursuit of a mesmerizing poet.
This newly reissued Cold War classic profiles an Israeli spy obsessed with an English girl half his age, and his attempts to win her love without ever revealing his true identity.
Three Chicago journalism students attend an “innocence” seminar that will teach them how to release the wrongfully accused from prison. But as innocents are jailed, a killer roams free, and the students are next on the hit list.
Please sign in to add a comment on this article.