When Harness Trenchold comes upon a ghost town, just out of spitting distance of Fargas Union, he knows he's finally found that place where he can settle his roots. But soon, hatching rocks and honking birdcalls at the local post office, bring more to Harness' new life than he'd bargained for. Was this a ghost town after all?
Pick Up Stick City
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Semken writes, touchingly, in his preface that he wanted to publish a novel by 40, that he worked on this one eight years and that notification came "when I was thirty-nine years, three hundred and sixty two days old." This bizarre and mystical fable is touched throughout by that same sweetness. An unkempt, inscrutable loner named Harness Trenchold, independently wealthy from childhood, feels himself compelled to buy an Iowa ghost town, Siren Falls, for $1 million cash. In a short time, egglike objects begin arriving at the neighboring town's post office, addressed to Trenchold at Pick Up Stick City, Iowa (the rechristened Siren Falls), but postmarked scores of years previously. As Trenchold rebuilds the old, run-down buildings, he discovers more eggs and a curious pool of water. When placed in the pool, the eggs hatch, reanimating the town and moving Harness to resurrect the town's traditional Spiral Ring, a picnic/confessional that (he has learned) made the town and its people special. Funny, poignant and more than a bit whimsical, this allegorical tale of smalltown and environmental care is suffused with wonder. It doesn't really work as a novel, but it's an oddly engaging fable. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
A how-to manual for deploying mythology for the restoration of compassion, civility, wonder and awe. -- Orion
Semken has created characters we recognize and relish for all their foibles, and a place that is miraculous in its potential. -- Gary Holthaus - Circling Back
Semken reaches deeply into his magical bag of ancient wisdom and crafts a story that we all need to hear, understand, and enact. -- Thomas K. Dean, Director, Iowa Project on Place Studies
Steve Semken finds his Middle Earth hidden among the Midwestern dust and rubble of a forgotten ghost town in Iowa hill country. -- Peter Sauer, Orion Society
The Midwest with all its eccentricity, mystery, charm and quiet beauty. -- Craig Lesley - The Sky Fisherman
Semken has created characters we recognize and relish for all their foibles, and a place that is miraculous in its potential. -- Gary Holthaus - Circling Back
Semken reaches deeply into his magical bag of ancient wisdom and crafts a story that we all need to hear, understand, and enact. -- Thomas K. Dean, Director, Iowa Project on Place Studies
Steve Semken finds his Middle Earth hidden among the Midwestern dust and rubble of a forgotten ghost town in Iowa hill country. -- Peter Sauer, Orion Society
The Midwest with all its eccentricity, mystery, charm and quiet beauty. -- Craig Lesley - The Sky Fisherman
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