"Generations knew this part of the country as the region that built modern America. Piles of demographic and sociological data chronicle this, the term brain drain serving as a sort of catamaran counterpart to Rust Belt." P. At every stage of opportunity, at every life crossroads, friends and family members and enemies and old lovers and vaguely familiar barflies depart. This is a defining characteristic of the generation of postindustrial Midwesterners who have stayed in their hometowns. "I have spent my whole life watching people leave. Still, this book was more of a rambling autobiography of a white, middle class experience of a specific city than a general set of essays about the Rust Belt, and ultimately didn't have a lot of interesting or unique things to say. I grew up in suburban Detroit and have a pained, defensive love of the city, so books about crumbled Midwestern cities often intrigue me. Giffels is a professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.Īn interesting but not very well-written book. He was selected as the Cuyahoga County Public Library Writer in Residence for 2018-2019.
His awards include the Cleveland Arts Prize for literature, the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and a General Excellence award from National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
He also wrote for the MTV series "Beavis and Butt-Head." Giffels is the coauthor, with Jade Dellinger, of the rock biography "Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!" and, with Steve Love, "Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron."Ī former Akron Beacon Journal columnist, his writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the, Parade, The Wall Street Journal,, , The Iowa Review, and many other publications. His previous books include "The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches From the Rust Belt" (Scribner 2014), a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice” and nominee for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the national-bestselling memoir "All the Way Home" (William Morrow/HarperCollins 2008), winner of the Ohioana Book Award. painstakingly and subtly wrought,” and by Kirkus Reviews as “a heartfelt memoir about the connection between a father and son.” It was a Book of the Month pick by Amazon and Powell’s and a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice.” The book has been hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “tender, witty and. "Barnstorming Ohio" author David Giffels has written six books of nonfiction, including the critically acclaimed memoir, "Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life," published by Scribner in 2018.
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