Driftless [Paperback]

When David Rhodes's first three novels were published in the mid-seventies, he was acclaimed as one of the best eyes in recent fiction (John Gardner), and compared favorably to Sherwood Anderson. In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, and unpublished for the subsequent three decades.

Driftlessheralds a triumphant return to the Midwestern landscape Rhodes knows so well, offering a fascinating and entirely unsentimental portrait of a town apparently left behind by the march of time. At once intimate and funny, wise and generous,Driftlessis an unforgettable story of contemporary life in rural America.

The few hundred souls who inhabit Words, Wisconsin, are an extraordinary cast of characters. The middle-aged couple who zealously guards their farm from a scheming milk cooperative. The lifelong invalid, crippled by conflicting emotions about her sister. A cantankerous retiree, haunted by childhood memories after discovering a cougar in his haymow. The former drifter who forever alters the ties that bind a community. In his first novel in 30 years, David Rhodes offers a vivid and unforgettable look at how each life affects many.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter One, Thistlewaite County, 1977
Chapter Two, Violet and Olivia, 1997
Chapter Three Cora and Graham
Chapter Four Gail
Chapter Five Grief
Chapter Six Faith Keeps No Treasure
Chapter Seven Humped Floors
Chapter Eight Hot Milk
Chapter Nine Broken Things
Chapter Ten Hiring Help
Chapter Eleven A Gray Van
Chapter Twelve Epiphany
Chapter Thirteen Straight Flush
Chapter Fourteen Fire in the Field
Chapter Fifteen Snow
Chapter Sixteen Envy
Chapter Seventeen A New Song
Chapter Eighteen Remembered Love and Anger
Chapter Nineteen Fear
Chapter Twenty Reunion
Chapter Twenty-One The Meaning of Truth
Chapter Twenty-Two Fighting Dogs
Chapter Twenty-Three The Universal Acorn
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