I love listening to this show today with David Rhodes. I haven’t read the book yet, but I will. I grew up im Madison, went to the University there and then moved to Massachusetts where my husband got a job. When I was small, in the 1950’s, my father used to take us on car rides in the country; he also took me and some of the neighborhood kids out to hike in the farmland there. The countryside in this part of Wisconsin got into my soul. For the last 38 years I have been going back to Madison in August from Massachusetts and driving around the driftless area to take photographs. I am a painter (when I get a chance) and this is my favorite area of all the world to paint: all the counties in southwestern Wisconsin: Sauk, Iowas, Richland, Vernon and so forth. I love the cover of the book; it makes me homesick. I can smell the wildflowers and hear the crickets. For years my dream was to live in this area. (Just a note: Clifford Simak, the science fiction writer, used to set some of his stories in the driftless area too. Especially Coon Valley, a mysterious place that I have visited.) Thanks for the show - it’s a nice birthday present for me.

Jeanne Anderson

I hope this message reaches David–

David, just hearing you in conversation it is so apparent how full of humanity and insight you are. I am excited to read the book. I grew up in Wisconsin and I look forward to reconnecting to a variation of a world that I know and miss.

I trust you know the Greg Brown song Driftless? Also, if you were in Beloit in the early 70’s, I wonder if you’ve seen the movie “The Real Dirt on Farmer John” about another Beloit alum who done good?

Earlier this morning on NPR I heard a historian say that there was a point in the founding of the nation that George Washington had a bad flu and if he’d died the country wouldn’t have been founded. It made me think that an averted flu of someone who isn’t related to most of us is one moment that results in all of us being here. Your books will circulate for the rest of time and touch peoples lives. Thanks for enriching the rest of us.

Finally, Tom Ashbrook seemed pretty invested in the “you were gone and now you’re back” narrative. While it sounds like that might have been true for a time, I wonder if you see it that way in the last couple of decades?

Keep up the great work and thanks!

Marc Lavine

To the subject raised on identity and the perception of it, relating to the fact that on a personal level we exhibit different facits of ourselves to the different people we come in contact with, if you do not consider the relationship we have with ourselves to exhibit the true facits that makes up who we really are, then the exhibition presented to the rest of the world cannot really be relied on.

Near the end of the interview, Rhodes distinguishes Steinbeck’s ear for dialect from the voice his characters take as a matter of talent, or difference in talent. I think the voices we hear from Steinbeck’s characters and from David’s support the distinct purposes of the authors: Steinbeck shows us characters mostly from the outside and encourages our outrage at the conditions imposed on them; the world is polarized. Rhodes gives his characters a shared voice with distinguishing features which reflects the web of connections and coincidence, the common humanity they and we inhabit.

I’m so looking forward to reading Driftless and especially so because my brother is Phil Christman–an intuitive and talented writer. I will never forget his enthusiasm at having discovered Rock Island Line in a library somewhere in 2004 and about what lovely people David and Edna are. He gushed for days. Thanks for an insightful interview Tom.

Dear David,

I grew up in South Carolina but I loved the interview with you and plan to read your book(s). Thank you for coming back into print. It pleases me tremendously that the agent for your emergence apparently was a student at the University of South Carolina. See, we’re not all rednecks down here! As a nurse, I appreciate your retreat but am so glad you’re back!! Having good books to look forward to makes me feel rich. Thank you.

Oh,David,
this interview is so much better than a book signing…(especially because I already have your signed book) and such a great interview, bringing out stories and history of you.
I sure liked you reading excerpts.
Thanks for sharing…YOU.
M

Pages 20 and 21 sum up and describe small town america as well as anything I have ever read and I know–I grew up in small town america.

Yes, I’m the privileged mom of Philip Christman, the young man who was so enamored of David Rhodes when he read Rock Island Line in the summer of 2004 that he called me all excited with a vow that he would not rest until he had found either more books by David or David himself. In the interview Tom expressed surprise that such a young reader would be so taken with David’s writing. Well, David is no doubt a truly engaging writer, but Philip had very discerning tastes in books even as a youngster and has known that he wanted to be a writer himself since elementary school. So it’s no wonder this lovely little drama has played out as perfectly as it has. It was nice to hear David on this show and be able to pick up on his disarmingly modest charm. I was intrigued to hear of his inspiration (the friend’s funeral) for the book, because I have often thought the same thing at people’s funerals - and weddings too, for that matter. For the record, Tom referred to Phil as a USC student at the time he went looking for Mr Rhodes, but that wasn’t the case. He was living in St Paul MN where he and his friend Ben (of Milkweed pulishers) loved to hang out and discuss books and authors. Phil was working for Americorp and did 2 years of voluntary service for them in St Paul, then went to Marquette University in WI for his Masters in English and has now been an MFA student at USC since August ‘07. Thanks, David, for the joy you’ve brought us all!! And thanks, Tom, for having the good sense to share David with us through this ininterview.

Having recently read “the story of Edgar Sawtelle”, I thought that was going to be the highpoint of my reading for 2008. Wrong, wrong, wrong…..

I find Driftless to be so amazing and touching that I cried twice at the writing.
David captured the bedrock humanness of the people of Word. To me the book was like a perfect painting. Ina good painting, you can’t remove any portion without ruining its integrrity. Such is the story of Driftless, all of the characters, and their interactions fit together perfectly.
I feel blessed by having read it.

dear mr. rhodes,

i read all your books in the seventies and loved them. read them all many times.

i am SO glad you are back. i am not sure if writers know how much readers actually need them, somehow. when i couldn’t find you, i grieved.

i also became partially paralyzed (from polio, revisited) and it is much more than losing mobility. i know this very well.

i admire you even more now than i did when i read your first three books. i know how hard it is.

carole jordan

Just finished Driftless. I found myself rereading paragraphs to savor the descriptive words. Page 212-Fear, more than anything—–. I feel as though I have found a marvelous author that knows the value of all our wonderful language. You made it an excellent read to create these word pictures. I am excited to learn there is an author to be read beyond the feeling of wasting my time reading the current trash. Thank-you for these sensational characters you brought to life.