AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE 2022 Wild Card Thread

We always include a Wild Card category in the AAC, 'cause everybody won't want to read everything on the list. So this thread is where we can share what we read instead of whatever was chosen for a particular month. The suggestion for this year is to read a book about or set in a place where you live or have lived---state, province, city, township, borough, foreign country. But it's merely a suggestion, and "wild" means WILD, so it's your choice. The only qualification that matters is that it really should be written by an American.

The whole American Authors Challenge list for 2022 can be found here.

I don't know that I will read either of these this year, but I do want to give a shout-out to a couple of well-known novels set in my hometown of Knoxville - A Death in the Family by James Agee and Suttree by Cormac McCarthy.

Well as I live in the UK, I'm sure I can find a book about London written by an American, at least I will have the excuse to reread 84 Charing Cross Road again!

>2 cbl_tn: Suttree was masterful, Carrie. And I've been meaning to read A Death in the Family every since the new version came out a few years back. I need to decide whether to tackle the original or the one that's purportedly "the way the author wanted it"---I'm never sure that's the mark of perfection. I know what a good editor can do! I never lived in Knoxville, but my daughter did...maybe I could cheat a little?

>3 Caroline_McElwee: Any excuse to reread that delight. Of course, there's also Anna Quindlen's Imagined London.

>4 laytonwoman3rd: I don't have that, but I do have another of her books Linda. Sorted.

>4 laytonwoman3rd: - I read that one, Linda (the Quindlen) and most of what she has written. She is a fave of mine.

The suggestion for this year is to read a book about or set in a place where you live or have lived.

Hmmm. There's always Updike. But I think I've already read all the books he wrote about Reading, Shillington, Plowville, and other Berks County, PA places. What's the setting for Rabbit at Rest? The jacket copy says the action shifts between "Brewer" and Florida. So there's that.

>7 weird_O: Have you read Northkill by Bob Hostetler and J. M. Hochstetler? It's historical fiction set in Berks County and only 99 cents for the Kindle version at Amazon. I haven't read it yet, but some my Lantz family was part of that Northkill Amish settlement, I wanted to read it. There is also a sequel called The Return. I'm hoping to get to one or both of these later this year.

I haven't read either of those, Lori. Kindle's not my thing; I'm an intransigent dead-tree book collector. Never heard of the Northkill Amish settlement either. So much to learn. Do you know where it was in the county?

>9 weird_O: The Northkill settlement was on the edge of the Blue Mountains. There was an Indian raid in which Jacob Hochstetler was killed. The historical marker is on US 22, 1 mile west of Shartlesville. Here's a brief description of it: https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-52

>10 thornton37814: fascinating.

>10 thornton37814: I know where that is. I haven't been west of Shartlesville on Route 22, but I go through there fairly regularly, driving north-south rather than east-west. I will check that out next time I go through. That's interesting.

>12 weird_O: I mainly know about this because of my Amish ancestry. Glad I brought the Northkill settlement to your attention. That massacre is well-known in Amish studies.

Found my February book and am enjoying it so far: A Life on the Road by Charles Kuralt. He was born and raised here in NC, and traveled all over the world as part of his journalism assignments.

I wasn't able to get a book for this month's author, so I read a wild card book instead. The Body Farm takes its name from the anthropological research facility in my hometown of Knoxville. Given the book's title, I expected the Body Farm to play a larger role in the book than it did. Still, I enjoyed Kay Scarpetta's brief visit to Knoxville, but did wonder how she managed to get a last minute reservation at the Hyatt on a homecoming football Saturday.

>15 cbl_tn: Wow....I read Body Farm long years ago, before I had ever bee to Knoxville, and didn't remember that it was set there. I loved Cornwell's early books, and I might have to revisit that.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: It is mostly set in North Carolina and Virginia. Just one or two chapters in Knoxville, but she hits some familiar landmarks. The Hyatt, Calhouns on the River, Neyland Stadium (anthropology department offices underneath the stadium), and, of course, the "Body Farm".

>17 cbl_tn: I really wish you hadn't mentioned Calhoun's...

Finished my April book:


Nature From Your Back Door by Glenn Dudderar

Delightful collection of columns written to educate the Michigan public about animals found in a suburban environment. I learned a few things as well.

After failing to be hooked by Manhattan Transfer, an intended re-read, I've plunged enthusiastically into A Wild Card Triple-Header for June's AAC.

Lead-off Wild Card: is Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. She was the AAC honoree in January 2018. I spurned her. I think I may have called her a sourpuss. A snot nosed kid called me out on that; I took the kid's riposte to heart (after sulking for a moment), refrained from further such characterizations, but didn't read any of Didion's work. Since that episode, I've acquired four books she authored, and of those I've settled on Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It's a 1990 collection of journalism and essays published individually when written in 1967. I am about halfway through the collection, and the scoring so far is mixed.

Next in the Lineup: In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff. I just finished Wolff's novel Old School, which I judged to be terrific, so I had an urge to read another of his books. I'm mulling the idea of naming Wolff the Wild Card, and cite both Old School and In Pharaoh's Army. I can do that. Yes I can. Hmmm.

Cleanup Hit: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley. In favor of this choice, I cite a New York Times encomium of Mosley under the head Walter Mosley Brilliantly Depicted Black English — and Black Thought, written by John McWhorley, a linguistics scholar, a NY Time columnist, and a Black man. McWorley recommended a trio of books featuring Socrates Fortlow, and...and I happen to have the first and last books in this trilogy. I am well into Fortlow's story.

Just bumping this up, as I believe there have been wild card reads mentioned elsewhere, but nothing posted on this thread since mid-year.

Looking through the books I've read this year, I have shockingly few American authors. I read mostly British authors and probably half of the American authors I read this year were because of the AAC, so thank you!

Here are the other Americans I read this year, and only 1 has a tie to where I live:

--A Lost Lady, Willa Cather (1923); set in 1880s-90s Nebraska, this is a short powerful novella about The West as an ideal.
--At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson (2010); a history of the home, using Bryson's English residence as a starting off point.
--Floating in My Mother's Palm, Ursula Hegi; a novel about a young girl growing up in 1950s Germany. This is a sort of sequel to Hegi's more famous work Stones from the River. Hegi was born in Germany, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and lives in New York.
--Truman, David McCullough (1992); I listened to the abridged audiobook read by McCullough. Even abridged, it was one of my favorite books of the year, and was a re-read. Much about his Missouri early years.
--The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka (2011); a short powerful novel about Japanese "mail brides" who came to California, circa 1910-1940.
--Epitaph for a Peach, David Mas Masumoto (1995); a memoir of Masumoto's family peach farm in California; he is a 3rd generation peach farmer. Much more interesting than I expected.
--Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit (2015); essays with biting wit and controlled rage
--The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea, (2005); nonfiction re-telling of 26 Mexican men who crossed the border in 2001; 14 perished in the Arizona desert. My one Chicago tie-in, Urrea was born in Mexico, raised in California and now lives in Illinois and I believe teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Thanks for the list, Kathy. And especially for mentioning Ursula Hegi. I read Stones from the River many years ago. Despite having been born in Germany, I think Hegi is undoubtedly qualified for selection in the AAC, and in fact I just may put her on the 2023 list.

Has the AAC ever featured John Edgar Wideman? I have a volume of his short stories that definitely are getting read next year. I read a couple of his books many years ago and have always meant to read more.

>24 kac522: We have not, and I confess I am not familiar with him.

I've started a thread for discussing what we'll read next year.
Pop on over, everybody, and let's talk.

>25 laytonwoman3rd: Interesting, I felt sure you would have known him, as he's from PA (Pittsburgh).

>26 kac522: I will take steps to correct this oversight ASAP!

The last few days I've spent some quality time with a library copy of Ken Burns' Our America: A Photographic History (2022). I've decided it fits here because (according to the Intro) every state in the union is represented, and I spotted as least 4 photos from Illinois.

It's very easy to just browse and slowly page through the stunning photographs. Each image is on one page, with a caption of place and year. At the back of the book is a more detailed description and history (a few paragraphs) of each plate with a thumbnail photo, photographer (if known) and source. The photos are all black & white; a few are in sepia tone.

I think there are about 250 photographs; I recognized a handful that I'd seen before or in Burns' films, but most were new to me, as were many of the photographers. Even some of the American history that it chronicles was new to me. The range of photos spans from 1839 to 2021. I've written down names of new-to-me photographers that I want to explore some more.

The book is huge, so I had to lay it in my lap or on a table to read. But it was well worth the "heft" it took to read it.