“Now, after what had to have been years of effort beyond the usual struggle of trying to make a good novel, we get [Rhodes's] fourth, and, I have to shout it out, finest book yet. Driftless is the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years.”  – Chicago Tribune

“[Driftless] presents a series of portraits that resemble Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology in their vividness and in the cumulative picture they create of village life. Each of these stories glimmers.” – The New Yorker

 “A profound and enduring paean to rural America. Radiant in its prose and deep in its quiet understanding of human needs.”
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A symphonic paean to the stillness that can be found in certain areas of the Midwest, The writing in Driftless is beautiful and surprising throughout, [and] it’s this poetic pointillism that originally made Rhodes famous.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Comprised of a large number of short chapters, the novel opens with a prologue reminiscent of Steinbeck’s beautiful tribute to the Salinas Valley in the opening of East of Eden, with a little touch of Michener’s prologue to his novel Hawaii. The book moves at a stately pace as it offers deep philosophy and meditative asides about life in Words, Wisconsin, in the Driftless zone, which is to say, about life on earth.”
- NPR, “All Things Considered”

 DRIFTLESS is a compelling, thought-provoking novel and an ideal choice for book clubs and reading groups.  Download the new Reading Group Guide below!

• NEW!  Reading Group Guide (PDF)
• Full color sign/flyer (PDF)
• Black & white print ad (PDF)
• Poets & Writers interview with David Rhodes (PDF)
• PW review of DRIFTLESS (PDF)
• Press release (PDF)
• Author photo (JPG)
• Book photo (JPG) — hardcover
• Book photo (JPG) — paperback
• Midwest Connections Rebate Form (PDF) — for the 2008 hardcover edition only
• Midwest Connections Generic Display Materials

About the Book

“The residents of Words, Wisconsin, are so fully realized, you’ll recognize them; the dialogue so authentic, you’ll be looking for the tape-recorder; the hurts so real you’ll ache; and the hopes so fragile you’ll pray. If Jesus came to show our forebears how to live, July Montgomery shows us how he might have lived today. There’s nothing religious or preachy about July. His is a ministry of presence – he notices, he listens carefully, he affirms, he acts – and somehow in as humble and invisible a way as possible, we’re better for having known him. Yes, I meant to write “we” just there. Because if you allow yourself to connect with the citizens of Words you too will come to know July Montgomery, and you too will be better for it. I know I am.”
- Keri Holmes, The Kaleidoscope, Hampton, IA

Home to a few hundred people yet absent from state maps, Words, Wisconsin, would appear to be a town left behind by the march of time. But in this place of seeming inactivity, life teems in vibrant and complex relationships that are anything but simple or mundane.

The story emerges from an array of characters. Cora and Graham guard their dairy farm, and family, from the mendacious schemes of their milk co-operative. Olivia, a lifelong paraplegic, suddenly regains the use of her legs, only to find herself crippled by a futile anger she feels toward Violet, her sister and caretaker. The recently-retired Rusty finds a cougar living in his haymow, haunting him like a childhood memory. A woman of conflicting impulses, Winifred, takes over as pastor of the Friends church and stumbles upon enlightenment where she never expected it. And July Montgomery, both intensely private and gregarious, instigates a series of events that run counter to the tendencies of solitude and suspicion in small towns.

In this place where private experiences do not remain private, where characters within the psyche’s dark theater are mirrored in the community, Driftless opens a window onto an ephemeral time in our history, an intimate and unsentimental portrait of an oft-forgotten way of life.

As a young man, DAVID RHODES worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA in Writing from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in rapid succession: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (Atlantic/Little, Brown, 1972), The Easter House (Harper & Row, 1974), and Rock Island Line (Harper & Row, 1975). A motorcycle accident in 1976 left him paralyzed from the waist down, since which time he continued writing but stopped publishing. He lives with his wife, Edna, in Wonewoc, Wisconsin.