The
place is the middle border, the Midwest borderland remembered in
the writings of Hamlin Garland. Richard Quinney's autobiographical
essays begin with his birth and early years on the family farm in
southern Wisconsin, continue through a lifetime of movement away
from the farm, and document a return to the farm. Along the way,
there are the tales of the years of living and writing in a prairie
town across the border. Part of the return of the native is a remembrance
of his father and mother. In the most recent telling, Quinney is
still moving between town and country. But it is always to the farm,
the farm on the middle border, that he returns.
In the tradition of the pilgrimage, the author is on a journey.
Along the way tales are told, reminding us of the tales told by
Chaucer's travelers on the way to Canterbury. Autobiographical reflection
allows the narrator to move in time and space across a geographical
landscape. Writing, as storytelling, documents the travel and provides
the possibility of a homecoming. The impulse to write autobiographically
is to know the present and, at the same time, to apprehend what
is yet to be. Lives are saved and renewed in the telling of these
tales. Such is the good fortune of the storyteller.
Richard Quinney is the author of several books that combine autobiographical
writing with photography, including Journey to a Far Place, For
the Time Being, Borderland, Once Again the Wonder, Where Yet the
Sweet Birds Sing, and Of Time and Place. His other books are in
the academic field of sociology. He and his wife live in Madison,
Wisconsin.
The
place is the middle border, the Midwest borderland remembered in
the writings of Hamlin Garland. Richard Quinney's autobiographical
essays begin with his birth and early years on the family farm in
southern Wisconsin, continue through a lifetime of movement away
from the farm, and document a return to the farm. Along the way,
there are the tales of the years of living and writing in a prairie
town across the border. Part of the return of the native is a remembrance
of his father and mother. In the most recent telling, Quinney is
still moving between town and country. But it is always to the farm,
the farm on the middle border, that he returns.