A Review of By the Iowa Sea by Joe Blair

I was sort of excited when I first heard about Joe Blair's By the Iowa Sea, a memoir written by a middle-aged, working-class Iowa transplant who feels trapped by his wife, kids, house, and job. It almost seemed as if Joe had written this book for me. I am approaching middle age. I've been married to Maggie May for close to twenty years. Our two kids are rambunctious and demanding. Our house is so small I tell people we live in a shoebox. I'm a librarian, not a pipefitter, though I'm sure some analogy could be made between the two. I often wonder, "What in the hell am I doing in Iowa?" And like Joe, I think, "I want to be in love again. I want to be brave, to give everything away, to be iconoclastic, idiosyncratic, and artistic."

Besides identifying with Joe's Midwestern midlife crisis, I was also interested in reading about the 2008 Iowa floods, though I was skeptical about the premise that the floods "revived in Joe the hope and passion that once seemed so easy to come by." In October 2008 I volunteered to help gut a house in Cedar Rapids which had been destroyed by the floods. The water had reached the middle of the second floor, and we were ripping out carpeting, linoleum, drywall, and fixtures, everything down to the wooden frame, so building inspectors could later decide if the structure should be saved or razed. The wood itself was permeated with muck and mold and stench three months after the floods, so our stumbling around the wreckage seemed pretty pointless. And this was just one house among five thousand. When I heard about By the Iowa Sea, I was worried that it would trivialize loss and suffering by using the floods as a syrupy metaphor for marital rejuvenation.

But as it turns out, By the Iowa Sea is not exactly sweet. Joe Blair reminds me more of Michael Perry (Truck: A Love Story) than Raymond Carver (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love), but he's probably nothing like Vicki Myron (Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World), as the readers' advisory database NoveList would have us believe. "If you enjoy 'By the Iowa Sea,' you may also enjoy 'Dewey,'" NoveList suggests, "because both are moving Family and Relationships [sic] about Iowa." I doubt it, considering Joe Blair writes about such things as learning how to masturbate, fishing feces out of his child's bath, shopping for a vibrating dildo, getting drunk at the Wig and Pen, having sex in an alley after smoking marijuana, his wife's forgetting to remove a tampon, and so on. I have not read Dewey the Library Cat, but I certainly would reconsider doing so if it included witticisms like this: "The thought of a venereal disease put a major kink in our romantic, postflood love vacation."

While not trite, By the Iowa Sea seems constrained, like Joe doesn't quite believe his own story. Passages swing from the strange ...

Elton John sings about butterflies being free. "Butterflies are free to fly." This is what he sings. And then he wonders why the butterflies fly away. It's a touching sentiment I suppose. Bugs being free. But a bug being free doesn't mean very much to me. What do bugs do with all that freedom anyway?

... to the moving, especially when Joe describes his relationship with his autistic son, Michael:

Our faces are very close in the dark. Mike likes it this way. Close. He is a beautiful boy. His eyes are large and liquid. His facial features are clean."Mike," I say in the darkness, "you're a good kid." I say it, and then I listen, for once. I don't stop listening after a few seconds but let the seconds run on. Mike has ceased his laughter now. After some time, I don't know how long, Mike whispers very quietly, "You're" and "a good kid." And then, "A good." And then,"Kid." And then "Mike, you're a good kid."

Joe's range is interesting, but his effort to ascribe some sort of sense or meaning to it doesn't quite ring true. I wonder if this uncertainty is a result of how Joe wrote By the Iowa Sea. In recent interviews, Joe says he writes for about one hour each day, and for every one or two writing sessions he produces an enclosed one-thousand-word essay. You can read some of these on Joe's blog. For By the Iowa Sea, he took hundreds of these enclosed essays, opened them up by "chopping their heads and feet off," and rearranged them into one book-length story connected by a simple narrative arc, personal redemption through natural disaster. Joe did this, he explains, because "life is a goat path." In other words, without the narrative arc, a book of his disparate essays wouldn't make sense.

A favorite passage of mine is when Joe reads one of his essays to his writing partner:

Pamela frowns."I don't get it," she says.
"Don't get what?" I say.
"The whole thing," she says. "I mean, here's a guy working on a piece of equipment, and then he drives to Wal-Mart."
"Yeah?"
"I don't get it."
"Maybe there's nothing to get," I say."I mean . . . I just wrote the thing five minutes ago. I can’t really explain it to you."
She nods professionally.

That passage makes me think of Raymond Carver, how Carver's characters never quite seem to know what's going on. My midlife crisis, my life, feels more like that.

And Carver struggled with the editing process, too:

 "I know there are going to be stories… that aren't going to fit anyone's notion of what a Carver short story ought to be… But Gordon, God's truth… I can't undergo the kind of surgical amputation and transplant that might make them someway fit into the carton so the lid will close. There may have to be limbs and heads of hair sticking out" (Raymond Carver: the kindest cut). 

I don't want Joe Blair to chop the heads and feet off of his stories in order to try to make sense out of them. I want "irredeemable characters who circle the drain," as Joe has described his unpublished fiction in recent interviews. I want the goat path. Let the goat path be the narrative arc, Joe.

Michael May


Joe Blair's Blog
http://blog.joeblairwriter.com/


Joe Blair Interviews

Other People with Brad Listi

Talk of Iowa with Charity Nebbe

Book Nook with Vick Mickunas

Talking With...Yale Cohn


By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir by Joe Blair was published on March 6, 2012 by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. This review was based on the digital galley obtained from Simon & Schuster through NetGalley.com.

Library Folks Being Mentioned

Monday, November 2, 2009, is a good day for library folks being mentioned in the Telegraph Herald.

Adult Services Librarian Mike May made the front page article Meet your online neighbors: Bloggers feature posts about life in Dubuque. Mike's personal blog the Dubuquer highlights media references to Dubuque. You can find his blog at dubuquer.wordpress.com. Mike is also the creator of W. 11th & Bluff, Carnegie-Stout's Adult Services blog.

On page 3 of Section A, Library Board of Trustees' member David Hammer has a write up titled Have you heard? Tidbits of news from the Tri-states. Magazine profiles Dubuque attorney. Hammer, also the author of 26 books, has served on the Library Board since August 2008. The October issue of Iowa Lawyer has an article about Hammer’s legal and writing careers. His most recent book For the Record: My Name is Hammer can be checked out from the Library.

~ Michelle, Adult Services

Earth Day Reads

Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22nd. To celebrate the City of Dubuque and the Petal Project will host a free Sustainable Dubuque Trolley Tour sponsored by Dubuque Bank &Trust on Monday, April 23. You can read more about this event on the city's website here. Be sure to check out Dubuque 365 Ink's list of area Earth Day Events too!

Carnegie-Stout has a great collection of materials on environmentalism, the green movement, and sustainability. Check them out to learn more, or to get some ideas on changes you can make in your life. Though we don't recommend you go to quite the extremes as some of the authors below!

No Impact Man by Colin Beaven
(333.72 BEA) Colin Beaven, author of historical biography, turns his attention to his impact on the environment. Mr. Beaven, his wife and child spent a year trying to leave no carbon footprint. From cloth diapers to replacing toothpaste with baking soda, his book is a personal examination of what the individual can do.

Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Fred Pearce
(333.72 PEA) Mr. Pearce, a science writer who focuses on the environment, became curious about the origins of those things we use in everyday life, from coffee to clothing. Confessions of an Eco-Sinner documents his quest to find the source and impact (environmental, social, and economic) our consumerism has on the larger world.

Tree Spiker by Mike Roselle
"Non-violent extremist" and environmental activist Mike Roselle's biography covers his involvement in activism from the founding of Earth First! to the current fight against global warming. Controversial, outspoken, and colorful, his memoirs provide a unique look at the environmental movement.

The Next Eco-Warriors
Emily Hunter, daughter of Robert and Bobbie Hunter, Greenpeace co-founders, profiles 22 young people involved making a positive impact on the environmental movement today.

Shift Your Habit by Elizabeth Rogers
(640 ROG) Going green doesn't mean spending big bucks on organic food, solar panels, and hybrid cars. At its core, green living is simply about moderation, efficiency, and living less expensively. Included are hundreds of habit-shifting suggestions to leave you with thousands of dollars you would otherwise never see again. These are tiny modifications that any family can make.

Please stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you!

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I don’t generally enjoy reading literary fiction.  Give me a mass market bestselling romance any day.  No vampires please, but time travel and dragons are okay.  Even though Chad Harbach grew up in Racine, Wisconsin, he is a founder and editor for n+1, an East Coast literary magazine that holds little fascination for me.  So why am I writing a review of his debut novel, The Art of Fielding?
 
Baseball.  I like baseball.  Baseball stories.  Baseball movies.  Baseball songs.  You gotta have heart ... Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks ... I don’t watch major league baseball on TV since free agency changed the game I grew up loving, but I still read baseball books, mostly fiction but also biographies like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four,  Jimmy Piersall’s Fear Strikes Out, and Dubuquer Brian Cooper’s baseball biogs of Red Faber and Ray Schalk.  I’ve been to the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, not far from where I grew up.  When we visited the Amanas, Bill Zuber’s Dugout was the only place my dad wanted to eat.  Who can deny the magic of “Is this heaven?  It’s Iowa”?
 
Anyway, just how literary can a baseball book be?  More literary than you might think when the novel’s setting is Westish College in northeastern Wisconsin.  The Westish teams are the Harpooners.  Harpooners on Lake Michigan?   Yes, well, Herman Melville spoke at the fictional Westish in the 1880s and current college president discovered the Melville papers and the Melville statue on the campus quad is a landmark ... I am well and thoroughly hooked listening to the audio version.

The Art of Fielding is an ensemble masterpiece, plus Holter Graham is a great narrator.  Listening to Holter use his voice to characterize Henry, the shortstop; Mike, the catcher; Owen, self-described as Henry’s “gay mulatto roommate”; Pella, running from an unhappy marriage; and her father Guert, Westish president and Melville scholar; kept me sitting in my car at lunch to hear just another chapter.  I was sad when the story ended.

Reviewers call The Art of Fielding a coming-of-age story.  Each of the five main characters develops as the book progresses.  While Henry may be the main character, the supporting roles are equally important to the story’s outcome.  Henry takes inspiration from a book by his hero, Cardinals shortstop Aparicio Rodriguez, also titled The Art of Fielding, which has mediation-like mantras:  “The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense.  He projects this stillness and his teammates respond.”  Owen, Henry’s roommate nicknamed Buddha, tries out and makes the baseball team, but sits in the dugout reading philosophy.  When an errant throw from Henry hits Owen in the cheek causing a concussion, both their lives are changed, as is the team chemistry and Westish history.

Another thread in the novel is the pressure to perform, both individually and as a team and commitments to oneself and others.  Mike is completing his senior thesis and trying to get in to a prestigious law school.  Henry, a junior is being scouted for the major league draft.  A fellowship in Tokyo will take Owen away from his friends at Westish.  The Harpooners baseball team is battling for their first ever berth in the national college playoffs.  Tired of the strictures of playing wife to her much older husband’s professor, Pella leaves San Francisco to be with her father in Wisconsin.  She finds satisfaction in working in the school cafeteria and regaining her mental balance and self-esteem.

Chad Harbach took almost ten years to find a publisher.  It was worth the wait.  Play ball!

~ Michelle, Adult Services

Reading Lolita in Dubuque

In observance of Banned Books Week, September 27 through October 4, 2008, Carnegie-Stout Public Library is hosting Reading Lolita in Dubuque, a program to encourage Dubuquers to celebrate the freedom to read by checking out Vladimir Nabokov’s highly controversial and frequently banned novel Lolita, along with Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Some Dubuquers have already started celebrating . . .


Dubuque City Manager Mike Van Milligen ~
 
Dubuque Police Chief Kim Wadding ~
 
Dubuque Public Health Specialist Mary Rose Corrigan~ 

To celebrate your freedom to read, go to Carnegie-Stout Public Library and check out copies of Lolita and Reading Lolita in Tehran!

The Unwritten by Mike Carey & Peter Gross

"This week a co-worker came up to me with a crazed look in her eye and said “Yesterday I was shelving some comics and started flipping through the first volume of The Unwritten. Before I knew it I’d read all five volumes the library owns. When will there be more?” It’s always great to watch someone enjoy something I liked a lot. It’s even more fun when their excitement borders on the maniacal." Andrew, from No Flying, No Tights.

As the co-worker in question, I cannot dispute Andrew's description of my excitement over The Unwritten. I'm still new to graphic novels, and, Andrew's selections for the Graphic Content book discussion are always interesting.  What drew my attention to this particular selection was the very last chapter, which imagines (or exposes, as the story would have it) the life and career of Rudyard Kipling, who, despite being a talented writer in his early days, did not come to fame without the assistance of a mysterious cabal of powerful men who seem to influence - if not determine - the course of  world events. (Mark Twain makes a special guest appearance, too.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The full title of the first volume of the on-going series by Mike Carey and Peter Gross is The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity. The Tommy of the title is the main character in a highly popular series of books written by the reclusive author Wilson Taylor. The Tommy Taylor series is modeled on the Harry Potter books (with Tommy as Harry) complete with wizards, wands and made-up Latin spells. The authors give a nod to Rowling's work in the first chapter, which completely won me over to the series.

There is another Tommy in the story, however, the "real" one (perhaps). Tom Taylor, son of Wilson and on whom the character was modeled (or maybe not). Tom has grown up in the spotlight and shadow of his father's fame. With his father's mysterious disappearance after the release of his last book, Tom travels the convention circuit reluctantly, having failed as a musician, actor and author. It is at one of these "TommyCons" that a young woman calling herself Lizzie Hexam publicly casts doubt on Tom's identity and whether or not he is Wilson Taylor's son.

The notion that Tom is a fraud creates an explosive amount of controversy, with a level of emotion only devoted fans can muster. Tom becomes a pariah, and on his way into hiding, is kidnapped by a crazed attacker pretending (or is he?) to be Count Ambrosio, the Lord Voldemort to our Tommy. With all of the internet watching, Tom survives and is suddenly elevated to  messianic status, something that turns out to be nearly as bad as being universally reviled.

But Tom's fortunes are about to change, again. Tom - now doubting his own past - begin looking for answers of his own. The search takes him to his childhood home of Villa Diodati in Switzerland (not coincidentally, this is also where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein - the novels are filled with these bits of literary trivia and seeming coincidences.) Tom, joined by Lizzie, finds more questions than answers, though, along with a map, a crystal doorknob and more than a few dead bodies. It seems that Tom's activities have caught the attention of some very dangerous people who don't seem to be fans of Tommy Taylor.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this novel are the secrets that are hidden within. Hints and clues are sprinkled throughout for the sharp-eyed reader, allowing us to participate in Tom's search for the truth. Much like our hero, if we look deeper into the story, we can perhaps find out what's really going on. Some of these clues - such as Tommy Taylor's name being printed in blue - might turn out to be nothing (this isn't repeated in the later novels). However others - especially those that feature Tom's pursuer Mr. Pullman and what becomes of objects he touches with his wooden hand - provide excellent foreshadowing.

Sue Morganstern and Mr. Pullman -
The letters that appear in the clay seems to spell
"man made vessel". Hmm.

I went back and re-read the first five volumes in the series not once, but three times, each time searching for further clues, especially in light of what happens in later novels. Of course, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar. Some passing knowledge of literature helps, and I found myself referring to Wikipedia and Google Translate more than a few times during my re-reading. It was well worth it.

The sixth volume in the series, Tommy Taylor and the War of Words, is set for release in October. In the meantime, we'll be talking about The Unwritten at the next Graphic Content book discussion on Tuesday, August 14th at 7:00 p.m. Come join us and find out if, in the words of Count Ambrosio, stories are the only thing worth dying for.

~ Allison, Adult Services

The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald

When it comes to science fiction, I enjoy books in the military sub-genre that have a strong heroine, and author Sandra McDonald has translated her experience as an officer in the U.S. navy into a trilogy of books that I devoured. The trilogy also includes elements based on Australian culture and history, especially that of the indigenous peoples, which is a rather unique spin on the genre.

The Outback Stars and its sequels, The Stars Down Under and The Stars Blue Yonder, tell the story of Lieutenant Jodenny Scott and Sergeant Terry Myell. The two main characters meet aboard the Aral Sea to which Lieutenant Scott transferred after her previous ship, the Yangtze, was destroyed in a terrorist attack.

The Aral Sea is a vast ship which ferries travelers and colonists along the Alcheringa, an alien constructed pathway between habitable worlds. The daily challenges of shipboard life are quickly overshadowed as Jodenny and Terry come to realize that the destruction of the Yangtze was not as simple as they'd been led to believe.

To promote the paperback publication of The Stars Blue Yonder, Sandra McDonald created a book trailer. It is available for viewing on YouTube: The Stars Blue Yonder: Ode to Australia
(Warning! This video contains spoilers for the first two books!)

And if you find you too enjoy Military Science Fiction with a strong heroine, you should check out these series too:

• The Honor Harrington series by David Weber are based in part on the Horatio Hornblower series of C.S. Forester, though set aboard a starship in the distant future.


• Elizabeth Moon is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps, and has written several series featuring military women. Her Vatta's War series starts with Trading in Danger.
  


• The Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepherd follow the title heroine who joins the navy to escape her powerful family, but finds her heritage is not so easy to avoid.
  


• Laura E. Reeve's Ariane Kedros series feature the adventures of the title character as she navigates espionage, a cold war, and alien forces.
  

-Sarah, Adult Services

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

I did not want to read Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom. It's an Oprah pick, and the big 'O' on the cover smacks too much of daytime television product placement, and that's probably the worst way to encourage me to read any book.

Nor did I feel compelled to read Freedom when I heard that Barack Obama requested an advance reading copy. Or did he actually take the presidential motorcade to a bookstore to buy one? I don't know the details, but either way, I heard Obama said it was great.

I love BBC's From Our Own Correspondent podcast, but I still wasn't inspired to read Freedom when Mark Mardell quoted the novel in his story about the American Tea Party: "Jonathan Franzen perhaps sums it up aptly in his new best-seller when he says, 'The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.'"

No, I did not want to read Freedom, not until I saw my wife Maggie enjoy it so much, curled up in the passenger seat of our car, while I served as designated driver on long trip.

Mostly quiet, Maggie would unexpectedly snort and laugh and exclaim, "This has a character from Bob Dylan's hometown in Minnesota. He says Dylan is a 'beautifully pure asshole!'"

Then, with the same sheepish grin she had when she told me that James Franco was hosting the Academy Awards, Maggie confided, "This says that during the Lewinsky scandal millions of American women would have slept with Bill Clinton in an instant. Huh!"

And further down the road, Maggie reported, "Hey, this is sort of grotesque. One of the characters has a habit putting his wedding ring in his mouth and sucking on it, but then he accidentally swallows it and has to wait to poop it out before he can get it back."

At that, I thought to myself, "Hmm, what an intriguing analogy of marriage."

Back at home, after she finished Freedom, I tried to tell Maggie about how much I liked Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier. Maggie looked through me and sighed, "Why don't we ever read the same books?"

That's when I figured I should not dismiss a book just because it has a big 'O' on the cover, not any more than I should read it just because it has an 'O'.

So I checked out the 562-page doorstop from the library and dug in expecting the great American novel. For the next several evenings, whenever Maggie asked me what I wanted to do after the kids went to bed, I scowled, "Enjoy my Freedom!"

Of course, it turns out Freedom is great. Hundreds of years after Oprah and the rest of us are dead and forgotten, Jonathan Franzen's Freedom will be regarded as one of the great novels of our times.

Well, it's more of a satire of what a great novel should be. The plot is more cartoonish than believable, and the characters seem as concerned about flip-flops and iPods and their dubious relationships as they are about society or politics or the environment.

But that's exactly why it is great. Freedom is about flawed people struggling in an absurd world, and Jonathan Franzen captures that struggle perfectly, just like a "beautifully pure asshole" would.

Maggie, what should we read next? I'll check the Oprah picks!

~Mike, Adult Services

Movies: The Maltese Falcon and Satan Met a Lady

Starting this Sunday, Carnegie-Stout Public Library is showing three movie versions of Dashiell Hammett's classic hard-boiled mystery, The Maltese Falcon.

Each of these movies will be introduced by Library staff and will be followed by open, informal discussion. Admission, popcorn, candy, and beverages are all free!

The movies will be shown in the 3rd Floor Auditorium of the Library. Here are the titles, dates, and times:

2 p.m., Sunday, January 13. The Maltese Falcon, 1941. Director John Huston's masterpiece features Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. The black and white film runs 101 minutes and is not rated.

2 p.m., Saturday, January 19. The Maltese Falcon, 1931. This 78 minute black and white film is directed by Roy Del Ruth and features Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez.

2 p.m., Sunday, January 20. Satan Met a Lady, 1936. Starring Bette Davis and directed by William Dieterle, this 74 minute black and white movie features Warren William as private eye Ted Shane. Instead of seeking the "black bird" (AKA The Maltese Falcon), the cast tries to find the "Horn of Roland," a valuable artifact filled with jewels in this comedic take on the Hammett tale.

Carnegie-Stout Public Library is showing The Maltese Falcon movies as part of THE BIG READ, a two-month celebration supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

See you at the movies!

~Mike, Adult Services

Pennies from Heaven Was Not Filmed in Dubuque

Christopher Walken in Pennies from Heaven

Thanks to Bryce Parks at Dubuque365 for including my article "Pennies from Heaven Was Not Filmed in Dubuque" in the latest issue of 365ink.

If you're interested in watching Pennies from Heaven, you can check it out on DVD from Carnegie-Stout Public Library.

~Mike, Adult Services

---

Here's the full text of the article from https://partners.dubuque365.com/ink/365ink193.pdf#page=29.

Pennies from Heaven Was Not Filmed in Dubuque

In a recent discussion on the Facebook nostalgia page “You know you grew up in Dubuque, Iowa if you remember,” several people mentioned that the movie Pennies from Heaven was made in Dubuque, and as proof they cited IMDb.com, aka the Internet Movie Database.

Pennies from Heaven (1981) is an R-rated musical set in Depression-era Chicago. Steve Martin stars as a financially and sexually frustrated sheet-music salesman who seduces a seemingly naïve school teacher played by Bernadette Peters. The movie also stars Jessica Harper, Christopher Walken, Vernel Bagneris, and John McMartin. It is directed by Herbert Ross.

IMDb includes Dubuque as one of the filming locations for Pennies from Heaven, but if you watch the movie carefully, Dubuque does not appear on screen. Outdoor scenes which look vaguely like Dubuque’s Historic Millwork District were actually filmed around the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles.

According to Telegraph Herald articles from when the movie was made, a second unit film crew from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did come to Dubuque in April 1981. The MGM crew spent “into six figures” in Dubuque on 50 hotel rooms plus food, gas, and phone bills. Out of 350 tri-state residents who answered the call for extras, about 50 were chosen and paid $40 a day, given 1930s haircuts, and fitted for costumes.

But unlike the Sylvester Stallone drama F.I.S.T. (1978) or the beer comedy Take This Job and Shove It (1981), Dubuque did not make the final cut of Pennies from Heaven. The single scene planned for Dubuque, of vintage cars crossing the Dubuque-Wisconsin toll bridge, was canceled because of overcast, rainy weather.

Filming did take place in nearby Galena, Illinois, on Main Street and at a farmhouse outside of town, but those scenes are very difficult to spot in the movie. The TH reported that because of the overcast weather, much of the footage was used by MGM only as “inspiration for building sets back in Hollywood.”

A couple of scenes in Pennies from Heaven supposedly show Steve Martin’s character driving on Illinois Route 1 from Chicago to Galena. In reality, Illinois Route 1 runs south of Chicago, not west to Galena. The road in the movie was actually filmed outside of Bakersfield, California. It is the same road made famous in the crop-duster scene with Cary Grant from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller, North by Northwest.

Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters were not at Galena during the filming of Pennies from Heaven. Their characters were played by stand-in actors from Chicago, which probably was a good thing. Around this time Steve Martin referred to Terre Haute, Indiana as “No Place, USA” and “The Armpit of America.” There’s no telling what he might have said about Galena.

In the bonus features on the out-of-print Pennies from Heaven DVD, MGM art director Bernie Cutler tells a funny story about filming in Galena. The curbs on Galena's Main Street were red, and there were no red curbs in the 1930s, so the film crew hired a painter to paint out the curbs. After the crew left for the day, they got an urgent call from the painter who said he had been arrested and taken to jail. The film crew had forgotten to tell the Galena Police Department about the curb painting.

Economic boosterism might explain why people believe that Pennies from Heaven was filmed in Dubuque. In the 2001 TH article “Area Reels in Cash from Film Projects,” Steve Horman, then president of the Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce, said, “It’s safe to assume that anytime a company is filming we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars from the smallest commercials on up.”

According to the article, the Chamber’s Film Bureau published a pamphlet for “prospective film industry clients” called “Discover Variety in Dubuque” which included Pennies from Heaven on a list of films “produced” in Dubuque. And more than a decade later, in 2013, the new non-profit Dubuque Film Office still lists Pennies from Heaven under “Productions Shot In Dubuque” on its “Made in Dubuque” webpage.

Other examples of this appear online. A 2009 post on the Des Moines Register blog includes the entry “1981 – Pennies from Heaven, Dubuque” on its list of “Movies filmed in Iowa.” Also from 2009, when Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy of Dubuque was asked about the Iowa Film Office scandal, Radio Iowa reported that “the 1981 movie Pennies from Heaven starring Steve Martin includes scenes from Dubuque.” The Iowa Film Office eventually closed over misused tax credits, but has since reopened under a new name, Produce Iowa, not to be confused with the Iowa State University Extension website, Iowa Produce.

The words “filmed,” “made,” “produced,” and “shot” may contribute to the confusion. If a film crew came to town, hired extras, and spent a lot of money on hotel rooms and gas, maybe the local film bureau could be excused for including the movie on its website, even if the local scene was canceled due to bad weather. IMDb, however, has specific guidelines about “filming locations.” Their guidelines say that “filming locations” are “where the filming took place.” While Galena meets this criteria, Dubuque should not be listed at IMDb as a filming location for Pennies from Heaven.

This is not to say that Dubuquers should skip Pennies from Heaven. It is strange and elegant and all the more wonderful for almost having been made in Dubuque.

Pennies from Heaven was adapted by screenwriter Dennis Potter from his 1978 BBC television series of the same name. The American version features disillusioned and depraved characters in elaborately staged dance scenes who lipsync popular songs from the 1920s and 1930s like “Love Is Good For Anything That Ails You” by Ida Sue McCune, “I Want To Be Bad” by Helen Kane, and “Let’s Misbehave” by Irving Aaronson & His Commanders.

This was Steve Martin's first dramatic role in a film, and his first movie after his breakout appearance in The Jerk (1979). But because so many people expected another comedy instead of an oddly moving, dark musical, Pennies from Heaven flopped, costing $22 million to make while only earning $9 million at the box office.

When asked about the film's box-office failure, Steve Martin said, "I'm disappointed that it didn't open as a blockbuster and I don't know what's to blame, other than it's me and not a comedy. I must say that the people who get the movie, in general, have been wise and intelligent; the people who don't get it are ignorant scum."

Fred Astaire was one person who “didn’t get it.” A clip of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to "Let's Face the Music and Dance" from the 1936 musical Follow the Fleet appears in Pennies from Heaven, but Astaire was not impressed. He complained, "I have never spent two more miserable hours in my life. Every scene was cheap and vulgar. They don't realize that the thirties were a very innocent age, and that Pennies from Heaven should have been set in the eighties – it was just froth; it makes you cry it's so distasteful."

Even so, Astaire is said to have complemented Christopher Walken on his bartop striptease in Pennies from Heaven. Walken plays the tap-dancing pimp who will “cut your face.” The rest of the cast deserves high praise, too, especially Vernel Bagneris for his eerie interpretation of the title song. As The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael said, "The dance numbers are funny, amazing, and beautiful all at once; several of them are just about perfection."

Besides the Busby Berkeley-style musical numbers, Pennies from Heaven includes a series of tableaux vivants, surprising scenes which replicate famous works of art, such as the 1942 painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper and the 1936 photograph Houses in Atlanta by Walker Evans (which in turn features the iconic billboard for Carole Lombard’s movie Love Before Breakfast from 1936).

You won’t spot Dubuque in Pennies from Heaven, but there are a lot of other remarkable things to see in this movie while you try.

Michael May is a librarian at Carnegie-Stout Public Library.

Staff Picks: Best of 2016

2016 has certainly been an interesting year. For now let's forget politics, economics, and world events, and instead, let's focus on books! This month we asked staff across all library departments to share their favorite reads of 2016. Their selections didn’t have to be new books (although some are); each just had to be “the" book.

As with any group, our tastes are diverse, but each featured book made a strong impact on its reviewer. Some of the year’s best are fiction, some nonfiction, some are children’s books or graphic novels. A few of us absorbed our stories via audio. Altogether we read a whole lot of books and here are our best of the year!

Mike May, Adult Services

Dispatches by Michael Herr

The best book I “read” in 2016 was the digital audiobook version of Dispatches by Michael Herr, which vividly describes the author's experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam. The print edition was originally published in 1977, but I hadn’t heard about it until the author died this year. Herr’s depictions of combat are as surreal and disturbing as they must have been 40 years ago, especially when told in narrator Ray Porter’s compelling voice. 

 

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

I also really enjoyed His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, a new historical thriller set in 1869 about a 17-year-old Scottish crofter who commits a brutal triple murder in a remote Highland village. Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, this fictional crime story is revealed through police statements, medical reports, newspaper articles, court transcripts, and the killer’s own confession. 

  

Rachel Boeke, Technical Services

Braiding Sweetgrass: The Wisdom of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This collection of essays contains the author's observations about the natural world and humanity, informed by her identity as a biology professor, a member of the Potawatomi tribe, and a mother. Stories such as the impoverished childhood of Kimmerer's grandfather, the sex lives of mushrooms, and an abandoned Christmas dinner are at once educational, humorous, and heartbreaking. Each essay stands alone, but the book as a whole is wonderfully engaging and leaves readers curious, grateful, and inspired to find connection with the earth - and with each other - at any time of year.

 

Laura Feyen, Technical Services

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I enjoyed The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It is about an orphaned girl in WWII Germany and her adoptive family, who hide a Jew in their basement. It is an interesting slice of life of civilian Germans in this time period.

Ryan Bankson, Circulation Services

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Would you sell your soul for eternal youth? Mr. Dorian Gray makes just such an arrangement, but the consequences end up being more than he bargained for.

 Danielle Day, Youth Services

Nanette’s Baguette by Mo Willems

Funny account of Nanette’s first big solo adventure to buy a baguette at the bakery. She travels alone and faces many distractions along the way as she meets and greets Georgette, Suzette, Bret with his clarinet, Mr. Barnett and his pet, Antoinette. But she remembers her mission and buys the baguette from Juliette the baker. The baguette is a wonderful large, warm, aromatic hunk of bread, so Nanette takes a taste and another and more--until there is nothing left. In rhyming pose her mother, whose hug is as warm and wonderful as a million baguettes, understands her and says, “The day's not over yet, Nanette. Let's reset.”

This Book is Not About Dragons by Shelley Moore Thomas

Nope! Absolutely not! No Dragons here! Told by a mouse who insists that this book contains absolutely no dragons, not even a claw nor a flame nor any large, pointy scales. The pictures tell a different story. Readers will know better and enjoy being in on the jokes as flock of dragons chase the mouse to the very end of the book within the book. Suspense builds humorously as the energetic text insists there are no dragons in this book, leading to a clever, unexpected ending. Clever artwork by Fred Koehler provides fun scenes to linger on and details to discover over multiple readings. If you like the Monster at the End of This Book – you will read this book over and over again.

Sharon Daly, Youth Services

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Historical fiction that takes place in 1939 France. Vianne and Isabelle are sisters separated by age and experience, both trying to cope with the occupation of France by the Germans.

Vianne must say goodbye to her husband who is heading to the front lines. Isabelle, eighteen years younger, is headstrong and rebellious and joins the Resistance after being betrayed by her French boyfriend. Both sisters are trying to survive and fight the war in their own ways, all the while attesting to the resiliency and strength of women. As a person who enjoys historical fiction, I was not disappointed by this book, which proves how strong the human spirit can be in the most adverse situations.

Abbey Holt, Technical Services

Bottomland by Michelle Hoover

When two girls disappear from their home in rural Iowa shortly after World War I, their German-American family struggles to solve the mystery while also facing hostility from neighbors due to their heritage. The characters’ German background drew me to the story because it mirrors that of my own great-grandparents, and the mystery woven through the novel kept me intrigued until the end.

Thea Dement, Circulation Services

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

My favorite book of 2016 was The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. This book is a mixture of fantasy, science-fiction, steampunk, and adventure. Irene is a librarian for The Library, an organization that gathers unique books from different worlds in order to maintain the balance between good and chaos. Irene gets sent to an alternate-reality London with her new assistant Kai to retrieve a dangerous book but gets dragged into a plot far more complicated than it first appears. They discover many other evil forces are looking to nab the book for themselves. To make matters worse, the world they are in is aligned with chaos, making magic and dangerous creatures like werewolves, vampires, and fae commonplace. Sound interesting? This is only the first book in the series - the second is just as fantastic and the third is coming out in January.

Rebecca Leifker, Technical Services

The Art of Holding On and Letting Go by Kristin Bartley Lenz

A coming-of-age story about a young woman who has spent her whole life traveling the world mountaineering with her parents and uncle. While competing in a rock-climbing event in Ecuador tragedy strikes, sending her whole life off course and her packing off to the mountainless landscape of Detroit. Cara must now find out who she is without the mountains and nature to guide her.

Ben Eagle, Adult Services

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This unconventional, literary suspense novel is set in the Midwest in the early 1900s. The descriptions of the cold Wisconsin winter were both lyrical and bleak. The story moves from a desolate small town in the winter to the livelier and more seductive St. Louis. Psychological games between a wealthy male widower and his mail-order bride make up the meat of this book. Both characters have been severely damaged in the past and are secretly using each other for their own purposes. This dark tale shows the madness that can brew up in long winters and isolation.

At the Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell

Bakewell traces the lives of the early 20th century philosophers most associated with the movement of existentialism. She gives mostly a historical account, but describes each person’s philosophy enough to show the importance they had on our conception of the world. Her writing style and tendency to tie in the influence these people personally had on her make this anything but a dry treatise. I often gravitate toward books about the early 20th century; this book takes the reader through the years leading up to WWII and the aftermath of the war. She talks about the effects the war had on these individuals, how it affected their mindset, and how they lived-out their philosophy (or failed to in some cases). In a time of hard determinism taking root in the scientific and philosophical community, her argument that as a culture we need to reexamine these titans’ work on personal freedom and authenticity is especially persuasive.

Angie Johnson, Adult Services

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Set in a lush, desert world reminiscent of ancient Rome with rich flavors of the Middle East, our two main characters Laia and Elias lead very different lives. Laia is an orphaned girl helping her grandparents sell goods at market. Her life is overturned when militants invade her home and destroy the only life she has known. Elias is a military trainee, days away from graduating and becoming a "Mask." Masks are enforcers who engage in violence and destruction, though Elias feels he doesn't fit in. Just when he is deciding that he might take his future into his own hands, a mysterious and powerful force requires Elias to engage in the battle of his life. Is he warring for honor, for some nefarious purpose, or his very survival? Meanwhile, Laia finds herself embroiled in dark secrets of the empire and those who might rebel against them. She soon realizes she holds more strength (and power) within herself than she ever knew. When these secrets and powers collide, will she end up standing up against or with Elias in the end?

A sequel called A Torch Against the Night was just released this fall. Spectacular and just as good as the first book. I believe it is going to be a series.

Michelle Oberhoffer, Circulation Services

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

News Of The World by Paulette Jiles is a sweet and salty book that I really enjoyed. The setting is the Western United States, post Civil War. A ten-year-old girl who had been kidnapped by Indians and who no longer even remembers how to speak English is rescued and placed in the care of an elderly gentleman who is to deliver her to her remaining family. As they journey through Kansas to Texas, they are confronted with several harrowing experiences, but learn to trust and eventually love each other. Watching the main characters grow and develop a relationship neither of them expected made for a very satisfying read.

Alanda Gregory, Circulation Services

People of The Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

I first read this book over 10 years ago. I've read it again this year because self-improvement is always necessary. This book has allowed me to learn and grow in a way that has helped heal many areas of my life.

This book takes an in-depth look at how our negativity and self-pain can affect our children and loved ones without our even realizing it. Dr. Peck gives examples of cases that he's encountered over years in his practice and how families were affected by very subtle hints of abusive behavior. What one may consider normal, others may look at as unacceptable and downright malicious in nature. However, the many parents, spouses and friends in these cases were oblivious to the "evil" that impacted the individuals they were related to or in relationships with.

I recommend this book to coaches, psychologists, or anyone looking for insight on how to help heal broken communications, broken hearts, and broken relationships. In order to even begin down that path, the reader must acknowledge that healing is welcomed. Dr. M. Scott Peck is a great writer and gives amazing perspectives that aren't just clinical answers to psychological problems.

If you like this book, may I recommend these other books by Dr. Peck:

A Road Less Traveled
In Heaven As on Earth
The Different Drum

  

Mark Bowers, Circulation Services

The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan

Geography is a force to be reckoned with and cannot be ignored when analyzing present conflicts and historical events. The geographic layout of the land has and will continue to directly affect the outcome of wars, the accumulation of wealth, and the general success of a country. Robert Kaplan uses geographic detail to explain why Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, why the Syrian conflict is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and why Russia is always meddling in Eastern Europe. The book also utilizes geography to explain the historical power of the British Empire, the rise of China, and the geopolitical dominance of the United States. Kaplan’s book encourages the reader to look at the world map with a new perspective and the book gives a greater insight into why countries have succeeded and failed on the world stage.

Sarah Smith, Adult Services

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

I spent a very satisfying afternoon with this novella, which won both the Nebula and Hugo this year. Okorafor packs an impressive amount of character development and world-building into 96 pages. I'm absolutely looking forward to reading the next title in the series!

The Last One by Alexandra Oliva 

The Last One will be near the top of my Best of list for 2016 for the way that Oliva mixes literary introspection, sharp human observation, and a suspenseful action plot. This is a fully absorbing weekend read that stuck with me even after I finished the last page, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a gripping tale of survival.

For more detail, here's my full review from earlier this year.




Ann Harris, Adult Services  

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

My Life in Middlemarch is a nonfiction hybrid: one part memoir and four parts literary biography, it tells the evolving story of author Rebecca Mead’s lifelong relationship with the Victorian novel Middlemarch, George Eliot’s masterpiece. Mead first encountered (and fell in love with) Middlemarch as a teen. She re-reads the hefty novel several times over the years, finding that different characters and plot elements resonate as she launches a career, marries, and raises step-children. The novel grows as she grows. 

Eliot, as an author, is known for her intelligence, warmth, and remarkable psychological acuity and she has found a worthy fan in Rebecca Mead.