I: Reckonings -- In the lion's mouth -- A temporary escape -- Erasure -- Homestead -- Light in the land -- Sonship -- Child as father -- Interim -- The skinny -- The film hits -- II: Swing points -- Father as child -- In community -- A poet's place -- Not giving in -- Giving it away -- Nutshell kingdom -- In another place.

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.

Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. : ebrary, 2009. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ebrary affiliated libraries.