A View from the Heartland: Everyday Life in America [Hardcover]

David Chartrand (Author)

Book Description

Series: View From | Publication Date: September 1, 2003

Many a lucky newspaper has on its staff a columnist with a gift for portraying everyday life -- observations that make us smile, cry, and reflect on our place in our community and our country; essays that assume an honored place on the family refrigerator or make their way into an envelope to be sent to friends and loved ones.

The stories of award-winning newspaper columnist David Chartrand land on American refrigerators because he writes about such universal themes as love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and death. Essays run the gamut from coaching a youth basketball team to living through the death of a sibling to the region's preoccupation with weather -- all perceived with honesty and humor. As the publisher of the Thomasville (NC) Times put it, "David Chartrand writes about things that real people talk about over the dining room table."

A View From the Heartland is a scrapbook of everyday life as viewed through the lens of the Midwest. This is not just a regional title, however. Chartrand's lens may be pointed at this swath of the country's heart, but through it we glimpse the extraordinary character and resilience of ordinary people who work, worship and raise families all across America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[This book] embraces the mundane, everyday things that make us laugh, weep or pound the table in frustration."
--Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator, #1 New York Times best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul ® and co-author, The One Minute Millionaire

From the Back Cover

Into everyone's life comes laughter and tears, happiness and heartbreak. It's no different whether you live in Kansas or Kathmandu. Within these pages columnist David Chartrand sees through the lens of the American Heartland, looking at everyday people living life with everyday grace. In prose remarkable for its warmth, humor, and compassion, Chartrand illuminates relationships between father and son, dog and master, husband and wife, friend and friend. It is through these stories of triumph and tragedy that we clearly recognize and celebrate the exceptional gift of the "everyday" life.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 1st edition (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762727322
• ISBN-13: 978-0762727322
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,051,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

DAVID V. CHARTRAND

DAVID CHARTRAND ("VIEW FROM THE HEARTLAND") IS NOT -- AND HAS NO CONNECTION TO -- THE OTHER DAVID CHARTRAND AUTHOR WHO WRITES EROTICA.

The humor and commentary of David Chartrand have appeared in publications throughout North America. His essays on families, children, education, and health issues are distributed to daily newspapers by Universal Press Syndicate as well as by his own distribution company.

His Web site is www.davidchartrand.com. Email him at [e-mail] or [e-mail]

David is the author of, "A View from the Heartland" (2003, Globe-Pequot Press), a collection of stories and essays about midwestern families and the resiliency of the human spirit.

He currently is completing work on a work of narrative nonfiction that examines attitudes toward mental illness in successful, middle-class communities.

In 2002, David received a First Place Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He is a member of the national Freedom of Information Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL book series, says that David Chartrand's writing "embraces the mundane, everyday things that make us laugh, weep or pound the table in frustration."

David's 1994 essay, "A Father's Letter to Santa" was included in CHICKEN SOUP: A CHRISTMAS TREASURY, where the publishers cited it as among the most memorable Christmas essays of all time.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is wonderful!, September 15, 2003

By 

Mickey Lathingham (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A View from the Heartland: Everyday Life in America (Hardcover)

This book showed up on the "new books" table at the bookstore so I bought it. The cover is beautiful. I took it home and started reading it. I didn't get halfwaythrough it before I found myself crying. It reminded me of the things my own family has been through. The writing is so smooth and tender. Not sure who David Chartrand is, but I think this book may make him famous. AT least he's gonna be famous around my neibhorhood. -- ML

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Feels Like Home, December 7, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Gardner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A View from the Heartland: Everyday Life in America (Hardcover)

Truly delightful and a treasure to be discovered by others! There are few things which can be said, to really encompass the warm feeling David Chartrand's book gives the reader.
A few months back I met Mr. Chartrand's neice as she returned from Australia to the city where her family had done the majority of their growing up, Omaha. She happened to pass on his book to me after a few family conversations we had. As we all know in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, you don't get to sit down and enjoy a good book as often as you'd like, but when you do find one, a real gem, you can't put it down -- that's how it was with Mr. Chartrand's work. I just wanted to write a note of thanks and admiration to Mr. Chartrand for putting a piece of himself and his family out there for the world to read and relate to, and somehow find a connection they may have lost along the way of growing up.
On a personal level, due to the fact that my parents were in the military, I was born overseas, and my family has moved frequently throughout our lives, never settling in a city where there was any of our extended family, but, for most of our lives, it has been Midwestern cities none the less, cities with people and situations that are very much the heart of Mr. Chartrand's book. In reading this book, I truly remembered all of the little things that made growing up around these parts so special, and why it was so great to be a part of families from the Midwest, with Midwestern values and ideologies. Now that I am grown and on my own, I still remain in close contact with my parents and siblings. This book helped me remember the power in that family connection that sometimes is overlooked when we get too busy in our own lives, or get too overburdened with the everyday toil to notice that maybe we were a lot happier or better off when things were simpler, maybe when we had/made less money, or had less possessions, when life was "about" something else. I'd like to extend my personal regards to Mr. Chartrand, for helping a kind-hearted, laid-back, but sometimes too-caught-up in the world of being a business professional, remember that there is something that means a lot more out there, and that "something" is truly the secret to keeping the heart happy. I can very easily see why Mr. Chartran's neice has turned out to be the person she is, surrounded by a family that knows more about life at a young age and throughout, then some folks do that live for more than a century. I hope that Mr. Chartrand will come out with another work in the near future, another small slice of reality and happiness that those like myself can laugh with, cry with, and undoubtedly, always remember . . . with a smile. Thanks again!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy read with humor and depth..., June 17, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A View from the Heartland: Everyday Life in America (Hardcover)

Everyone has a friend from one of the big Catholic Midwestern families the author immerses us in within this book -- families held together by a quiet, hard-working father and a magnetic, high-strung mother and brothers and sisters with loyalties so strong that it's hard for outsiders to fully understand them, let alone penetrate the circle. Chartrand gives us a peek inside in this warm and wistful collection of essays, eschewing gross sentimentality but never concealing the fact that in spite of his welcome humor, his heart is sewn securely on his sleeve. An easy read well worth reading.