The author of the 1969 classic What I'm Going to Do, I Think and the acclaimed Beyond the Bedroom Wall begins his story by relating a near-death experience with a malfunctioning hay baler--the kind of mistake that can kill a novice farmer. This episode is the first skein in a rich tapestry of memories, from colorful snippets of Woiwode's time in New York as a young writer working with the late, great William Maxwell, to his days as a young father, husband, and teacher trying to scrape enough together to buy a ranch in western North Dakota, and finally to the prospect of an empty nest and the step from death that he finds rapidly approaching.--From publisher description.
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