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Viking
January 2014
On Sale: January 16, 2014
Featuring: Diane Johnson
266 pages
ISBN: 0670016403
EAN: 9780670016402
Kindle: B00DMCUZQ2
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
From the New York Times bestselling author of
Le Divorce, a dazzling meditation on the mysteries of
the “wispy but material” family ghosts who shape us
Growing up in the small river town of Moline,
Illinois, Diane Johnson always dreamed of floating down the
Mississippi and off to see the world. Years later, at home
in France, a French friend teases her: “Indifference to
history—that’s why you Americans seem so naïve and don’t
really know where you’re from.”
The
j’accuse stayed with Johnson. Were Americans indifferent
to history? Her own family seemed always to have been in the
Midwest. Surely they had got there from somewhere? In
digging around, she discovers letters and memoirs written by
generations of stalwart pioneer ancestors that testify to
more complex times than the derisive nickname “The Flyover”
gives the region credit for.
With the acuity and
sympathy that her novels are known for, she captures the
magnetic pull of home against our lust for escape and
self-invention. This spellbinding memoir will appeal to fans
of Bill Bryson, Patricia Hampl, and Annie Dillard.
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