Curlew: Home [Paperback]

Tom Montag (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bless Montag for the grace with which he has brought the ether of his perceptive life down to our earth. -- - Dave Engel, author of Just Like Bob Zimmerman's Blues: Dylan in Minnesota

It will move you. You'll never look at a field of corn the same way again." -- - Marshall Cook, Creativity Connection, Madison, Wisconsin

Montag celebrates the country's most overlooked and underestimated region and movingly portrays his hardworking and loving parents. -- Donna Seaman, Booklist, October 1, 2001

About the Author

Tom Montag is a middle western poet and essayist who has all along been interested in place and the literature of place. For his next project, Montag hopes to look at one town in each of the middle western states -- the people, the history, the landscape -- to see what it is that makes us what we are. Beyond that, he will continue working on his book about the people and places of the Fox and Wolf River basins of Wisconsin, "Middle River Tangle."

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Midday Moon Books (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971187401
• ISBN-13: 978-0971187405
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,510,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curlew: Home, November 30, 2001

By 

Roger Ziemann (St. Cloud, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Curlew: Home (Paperback)

Curlew: Home by Tom Montag rang true with me, a fellow Midwesterner. In this combination memoir and critical reflection on childhood, Tom Montag revisits his roots in and around the small town of Curlew, Iowa, circa 1960-65. He reflects on his childhood through the eyes of a middle aged adult who now has the perspective necessary to see himself as he was and to see the buildings, land and people as they were.

But this book is more than just musings of the past over potato salad at a family reunion. This book has introspection with an intuitive psychological foundation on a par with Tom Brokaw written with the word choice of a poet, which Tom Montag is.

Although this is a book about a corner of Iowa, it is, in reality, not a book about Iowa. Curlew, Iowa, and the Midwest become symbols of the greater reality of family, home, life, death and change. It is a book about what it means to be human.

With the opening words, I became part of the book. Memories of my own parents and grandparents came back to me. These memories may have remained hidden forever without Tom Montag and his new book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Revisit 1950's life on the farm, September 1, 2005

By 

C. Evert "[e-mail]" (Nebraska) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Curlew: Home (Paperback)

If you long for more simple times in life,
this book is for you.

Mr. Montag will move you into
history and, at times unwillingly,
into the present. His memoir will
also make you realize time is equal
for everyone.

I found this book very similar to
Dakota by Kathleen Norris.