Making It Home

Winner of the 1998 Oregon Book Award.
Winner of the Francis Fuller Victor Award for Literary Nonfiction.

"Lars Nordström brings the tradition of Scandinavian-American literature and the passionate ecological awareness of contemporary Scandinavia to this fascinating account of his years as an Oregon vintner, husband, father, translator, scholar, and involved citizen of the world. In evoking and musing on his own life, he moves us to value our own lives and all new life. This compelling, accessible, and unpretentious book is a new, significant vision of our endless quest to belong in the world we call home." Ralph Salisbury, Writer; Emeritus Professor, University of Oregon

"Nordström's story is a contemporary mirror by which we may re-experience the immigrant story that fuels our national identity. In an intimate seasonal journal, he explores his sense of displacement from his native Sweden, his further displacement from the world of business, an ethics of ecology, and his growing awareness of belonging to a particular place. By looking at ourselves — and our land — through his eyes, we also discover what it is to 'make it home.' His language is precise and detailed, with lyrical descriptions to bring the natural world and the deepest concerns of his life into focus. This memoir, his first venture into the arena of independent literary projects, combines the freshness of a new writer with sure craftmanship. He expertly weaves together two tales: that of an idealistic immigrant with a fascination for American culture, and that of a twentieth-century pioneer moving West, building a life in harmony with the land." Faris Cassell, The Register-Guard

"The reader has an opportunity to travel with a thoughtful man who loves his life and that life is authentic. Very highly recommended." Bob Foster, California Grapevine

"Here are the pleasures and pains of the organic cycle; stories of an immigrant quest; the wealth of memory, family, and marriage; the difficult practice of ecological ethics; the daily farm images of grief, magic, and joy; and a full cellar of rich red wine — all made possible by the husbandry of love. Nordström shows us that America is still an immigrant culture seeking the authentic — which immigrants like Nordström discover, harvest, crush, ferment, decant, and pass on. This prose has body and bouquet, is neither too sweet nor too dry, is clear and colorful. I predict a vintage here that will endure." George Venn, General Editor, Oregon Literature Series

Lars Nordström was born in 1954 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he lived until 1974. He was educated at the University of Stockholm and Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he received a BA in English in 1981. He then moved to Uppsala University, Sweden, where he received his Ph.D. in American literature in 1989. He is the recipient of several Fulbright grants, a Scandinavian Foundation grant for academic research in the USA, several Swedish Institute grants and awards, as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center fellowship. In 1988 he settled with his wife and two sons on a small vineyard in Beavercreek, Oregon. For many years Lars Nordström worked as a technical translator in the high tech industry, but now divides his time between growing wine grapes and writing and translating literature, as well as giving talks on various Swedish-American subjects.

Lars Nordström has published prose, poetry, translations, interviews, articles, and scholarly materials in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, Japan and the United States in magazines such as Studia Neophilologica, Horisont, the new renaissance, Translation, The Greenfield Review, Calapooya Collage, Northwest Review, PRISM International, International Poetry Review, The Chariton Review, and WRIT.