Fear and Loving in South Minneapolis

(Paperback)

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A veteran Twin Cities journalist and raconteur summons the life of the city after reporting and recording its stories for more than thirty years

Two or three times a week, as a columnist, hustling freelance writer, and genuinely curious reporter, Jim Walsh would hang out in a coffee shop or a bar, or wander in a club or on a side street, and invariably a story would unfoldone more chapter in the story of Minneapolis, the city that was his home and his beat for more than thirty years. Fear and Loving in South Minneapolis tells that story, collecting the encounters and adventures and lives that make a city humand make South Minneapolis what it is.

Here is a man who drives around Minneapolis in a van that sports a neon sign and keeps a running tally of the soldiers killed in Iraq. Here is another, haunted by the woman he fell in love with, and lost, many years ago at the Minnesota Music Caf on St. Pauls East Side. Here are strangers on a cold night on the corner of Forty-sixth and Nicollet, finding comfort in each others company in the wake of the shootings in Paris. And here are Walshs own memories catching up with him: the woman who joined him in representing junior royalty for the Minneapolis Aquatennial when they were both seven years old; the lost friend, Soul Asylums Karl Mueller, recalled while sitting on his memorial bench at Walshs go-to refuge, the Rose Gardens near Lake Harriet. These everyday interactions, ordinary people, and quiet moments in Jim Walshs writing create an extraordinary picture of a citys life.

James Joyce famously bragged that if Dublin were ever destroyed, it could be rebuilt in its entirety from his written works. The Minneapolis that Jim Walsh maps is more a matter of heart, of urban life built on human connections, than of streets intersecting and literal landmarks: it is that lived city, documented in measures large and small, that his book brings so vividly to mind, drafting a blueprint of a communitys soul and inviting a reader into the boundless, enduring experience of Fear and Loving in South Minneapolis.

Reviews

"As fine a writer as the Twin Cities has ever spawned."Bob Collins, Minnesota Public Radio

"Throughout this generous, sprawling, and haunted (yes, it is) volume, characters rise and descend, slip into still lake waters on dark summer nights and emerge luminous; they wail and sing, and we dont need to know the difference between; for in Jim Walshs telling (and as his Irish ancestors knew too well) sorrow invariably moves into bright song, and songno matter how buoyantly intonedis forever laced with melancholy and loss. This is what it means to love profoundly and without condition, as Jim seems to love not only his town but us as well. The place he describes feels to be both lost to the past, and yet somehow still in the process of becoming. Jim is the most faithful of narrators, and as such, be prepared: the story he tells might just be your own."Joe Henry, Grammy Awardwinning producer/singer/songwriter/author

"Jim Walsh gives us genuine affection in revealing the soul of growing up in South Minneapolis. Home to so many of us, born and bred. The treatment bound, the aint never gonna leaves. Lapsed midwesterners, returning prodigal daughters and sons. Death, drunks, democrats. Dads and dogs. Brother Walsh is the ride or die guardian angel of all teenage prayers."Mary Lucia

"To some, Jim Walsh is a modern-day troubadour. To others, he's simply The Dude. Whichever is the case, in this volume that is at times rollicking, irreverent, always poignant and even sentimental, though never maudlin, he writes beautifully about Minneapolis, the city he deeply loves. One can't help but see that love with each page and each vignette crafted by a master who knows that to best feel the soul of the city, one must spend time with its individuals, and to know them truthfully, one must hear the stories they inhabit. In Fear and Loving in South Minneapolis, Jim shares with us his eyes and ears, along with his own soul that brings them all together."William D. Green, author of The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1860-1876

"The essays and columns by Jim Walsh that resonate with me most in Fear and Loving in South Minneapolis center around his observations of the beautiful natural spaces in our city. Now more than ever, we are turning to our parks and lakes to find solace in these tremendously tumultuous and challenging times. We should all take time to savor these beautiful places like Jim does and renew our spirits."Sarah McKenzie, former editor of the Southwest & Downtown Journals

"He writes lovingly about how the light changes over the lakes, the human parade in public places, and his need to connect with the human condition."St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Readers will come to know and love the people and places of the authors Lake Harriet neighborhood."Star Tribune

Author Bio

Jim Walsh is a writer, journalist, columnist, and songwriter. He is author of The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting and, with Dennis Pernu, The Replacements: Waxed-Up Hair and Painted Shoes. The Photographic History. His most recent books are Bar Yarns and Manic-Depressive Mixtapes and Gold Experience: Following Prince in the 90s (both from Minnesota). A former music editor at City Pages and pop music columnist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he has published in Rolling Stone, SPIN, Village Voice, LA Weekly, Melody Maker, Billboard, and Utne Reader.

Tommy Mischke is a writer, musician, podcaster, and former radio talk show host from Minnesota. A former columnist for City Pages, he hosts the podcast The Mischke Roadshow.