At Home on This Moveable Earth [Hardcover]

William Kloefkorn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 080322768X | ISBN-13: 978-0803227682 | Publication Date: May 1, 2006 | Edition: 1

Whether writing about a boyhood in the Great Depression, the bond between a young man and his family, digging storm cellars and ducking tornadoes, or the dropping of the atomic bomb as experienced by a paperboy in small-town Kansas, Kloefkorn brings a congenial mixture of seriousness and humor to his subjects. Here and there the commonplace lends itself to the not-so-common question: What is the odd relationship between power, terror, and beauty? Why are human beings torn between staying put and moving—in intellectual and spiritual as well as physical terms? And how much of who we are is composed of who we were? Rife with insight, At Home on This Moveable Earth is as wonderfully readable as the first two volumes of Kloefkorn’s memoirs, a thoughtful tour of a curious character’s life so far and a model of retrospective introspection.

(20060725)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nebraska State Poet Kloefkorn's third memoir (after This Death by Drowning and Restoring the Burnt Child) recounts his childhood and adolescence, creating from short vignettes a haunting and memorable panorama of mid-century rural Kansas. Although later chapters take the reader into Kloefkorn's college years, the narration has a dreamy, child-like quality throughout: Kloefkorn wonders about the world around him and is amazed by it all, from small details (the way his father and brother curse) to events of grave significance (almost being flattened by a tractor). Kloefkorn's sonorous prose and poetic sensibilities heighten the reader's perception of life, and despite the wonderment of Kloefkorn's narrative, the book's structure is carefully wrought; he uses counterpoint, flashbacks, shifting points of view and variations on themes to shape his memoir. Kloefkorn is a consummate storyteller with a keen eye and a gift for language that is beautiful in its simplicity.
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From Booklist

Whether removing the earth beneath his childhood home one bucket at a time to help his father prepare the storm cellar for the family's first furnace, or dumping wheelbarrows full of dirt at the construction site of a new grain elevator as part of a precollege summer job, Kloefkorn similarly reveals his life one vignette at a time in this richly evocative third installment of his proposed four-part memoir. With deftly wrought imagery so powerful and yet so poetic, this son of the plains and prairie gentles the reader back to days that nostalgia dictates must be remembered as sweetly unadorned. And yet, as Kloefkorn so cogently illustrates, no time is truly simple, and the transition from innocence to knowledge can be both magical and frightening. It takes a rare and gifted writer to seamlessly transport the reader through the devastating fury of rumbling tornadoes and the delectable freshness of romantic awakenings. Kloefkorn is just such a writer, and the journey is a lyrical experience. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 218 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; 1 edition (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080322768X
• ISBN-13: 978-0803227682
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,292,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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