Synopses & Reviews
In
Every Day by the Sun, Dean Faulkner Wells recounts the story of the Faulkners of Mississippi, whose legacy includes pioneers, noble and ignoble war veterans, three never-convicted murderers, the builder of the first railroad in north Mississippi, the founding president of a bank, an FBI agent, four pilots (all brothers), and a Nobel Prize winner, arguably the most important American novelist of the twentieth century. She also reveals wonderfully entertaining and intimate stories and anecdotes about her family—in particular her uncle William, or “Pappy,” with whom she shared colorful, sometimes utterly frank, sometimes whimsical, conversations and experiences.
This deeply felt memoir explores the close relationship between Dean’s uncle and her father, Dean Swift Faulkner, a barnstormer killed at age twenty-eight during an air show four months before she was born. It was William who gave his youngest brother an airplane, and after Dean’s tragic death, William helped to raise his niece. He paid for her education, gave her away when she was married, and maintained a unique relationship with her throughout his life.
From the 1920s to the early civil rights era, from Faulkner’s winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature to his death in 1962, Every Day by the Sun explores the changing culture and society of Oxford, Mississippi, while offering a rare glimpse of a notoriously private family and an indelible portrait of a national treasure.
Review
andquot;The Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser is an invaluable resource and entertaining work for poetry lovers of all kinds.andquot;andmdash;Travis Amundson, Nebraska Lifeand#160;
Review
andquot;Stillwell shows us that that effect of Kooser's poems is the result of a prosody as carefully cultivated as that of any fine poet. As she unfolds the events of Kooser's ordinary life, she examines each of his collections and his few, short prose books to disclose the large aim of his writing, which is to demonstrate and affirm the interconnectedness of people and their natural contexts.andquot;andmdash;Ray Olson, Booklist
Review
andquot;Aand#160;fine, authoritative first biography of the former U.S. Poet Laureate.andquot;andmdash;Tom Lavoie, Shelf Awareness
Review
"[The Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser] is more than just a biography. It offers a window into much of Kooser's life and highlights his writing throughout."and#8212;Jill Martin, Seward County Independent
Review
and#8220;Ted Kooser is an important American poet who achieved a national reputation while living and working almost entirely outside the centers of literary power. Mary K. Stillwelland#8217;s carefully researched new book provides biographical information never before available. This is a uniquely useful study of Kooserand#8217;s life and work.and#8221;and#8212;Dana Gioia, poet and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
Review
and#8220;Mary K. Stillwelland#8217;s biography,
The Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser, is not only carefully, clearly researched and presented, but a project of genuine love. Longtime Kooser fans will cheer for more details illuminating our beloved favorite poet. New Kooser readers will find the book so inviting they too make a lifetime friend.and#8221;and#8212;Naomi Shihab Nye, author of
19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle EastReview
"Stillwell has accomplished a nice piece of very readable scholarship."and#8212;Nancy S. Gillis, Nebraska History
Review
andquot;Working far outside the dominant literary establishmentandmdash;both geographically and in terms of current fadsandmdash;Kooser modestly yet powerfully turns us toward the mystery, heartache, and beauty at the heart of ordinary life. Stillwellandrsquo;s excellent study helps us to understand how and why he does this.andquot;andmdash;Scott Kinckerbocker, Western American Literature
Synopsis
Like a flash of lightning it came to himand#8212;the unathletic high school student Ted Kooser saw a future as a famous poet that promised everything: glory, immortality, a bohemian lifestyle (no more doing dishes, no more cleaning his room), and, particularly important to the lonely teenager, girls! Unlike most kids with a sudden ambition, Kooser, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and thirteenth poet laureate of the United States, made good on his dream. But glory was a long time coming, and along the way Kooser lived the life that has made his poetry what it is, as deeply grounded in family, work, and the natural world as it is attuned to the nuances of language.
and#160;Just as so much of Kooserand#8217;s own writing weaves geography, history, and family stories into its measures, so does this first critical biography consider the poetand#8217;s work and life together: his upbringing in Iowa, his studies in Nebraska with poet Karl Shapiro as mentor, his career in insurance, his family life, his bout with cancer, and, always, his poetry. Combining a fine appreciation of Kooserand#8217;s work and life, this book finally provides a fuller and more complex picture of a writer who, perhaps more than any other, has brought the Great Plains and the Midwest, lived large and small, into the poetry of our day.
About the Author
DEAN FAULKNER WELLS is the niece of William Faulkner and the daughter of Dean Swift Faulkner and Louise Hale. She is the author of, among other works, The Ghosts of Rowan Oak: William Faulkner’s Ghost Stories for Children and is the editor of The New Great American Writers Cookbook and The Best of Bad Faulkner. She lives with her husband, Larry Wells, in Oxford, Mississippi, where they run Yoknapatawpha Press, a regional publishing house that focuses on southern writers.