By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This vivid memoir about the heartbreaks and ecstasies of marriage, fatherhood, and small-town Midwestern life is so raw and true youll gasp (O, The Oprah Magazine).

Heralding the arrival of an original American voice, By the Iowa Sea is a wrenching, unsentimental account of the heartbreaks and ecstasies of marriage, fatherhood, and small-town Midwestern life.

After his first cross-country motorcycle trip, Joe Blair believed he had discovered his calling: he would travel; he would never cave in to convention; he would never settle down. Fifteen years later, he finds himself living in Iowa, working as an air-conditioning repairman and spending his free time cleaning gutters, taxiing his children, and contemplating marital infidelity. When the Iowa River floods, transforming the familiar streets of his small town into a terrible and beautiful sea, Joe begins to question the path that led him to this place.

Exquisitely observed and lyrically recounted, this is a compelling and often humorous account of an ordinary mans struggle to live an extraordinary life.

Reviews

A memoirist with a poets soul, [Blair] takes what is arguably the most mercilessly exploited natural resource in all of literature and replenishes it. Blair has an autistic son, Michaeland it is their love story that lends the tempest... and this memoir its observational virtuosity. -- New York Times Book Review
Some memoirs you read for the feelings they inspire, and some you read to find out how in the heck theyll turn out. By the Iowa Sea manages to do both with an understanding of so-called ordinary life so raw and true youll gasp, and a situation so pressing youll tear through the pages. The writers unflinching reflection about himself and his choices make this book. -- Oprah.com
"A beautifully written story about marriage, responsibility and caring for an autistic child." -- Bookpage
"Engrossing, thoughtful, startlingly honest, and, ultimately, hopeful." -- Iowa Press Citizen
"Blair put away his motorcycle and his dreams to do manual labor while supporting four children, one of whom is autistic. Rekindling a sense of purpose took something big: a terrible flood. Not a whiny work; fresh, plain-spoken, and down to earth. Definitely try."
--Library Journal

A devastating flood provides the backdrop for Joe Blair's moving memoir about crisis and change. If you want to understand how a good man can resolve the conflict between his youthful dreams and his adult sense of duty, read this book. His honesty about the real challenges of marriage and parenting is startling in the best sense, and shot through with refreshing humor.

--Julie Metz, author of The New York Times bestselling memoir, Perfection
Joe Blair's passion and courage are evident on each page of By the Iowa Sea. He is among those rare writers brave enough to risk everything for his work and the result is this hypnotic, electrifying book.

--Alexander Maksik, author of You Deserve Nothing
Blairs thoughtful memoir displays the strengths and resilience of committed lovers in a tumultuous relationship.
--Publishers Weekly
Joe Blairs voice is uncommonly perceptive, startlingly honest, and powerfully moving. This is eloquence born of pain, sharpened by humor, and burnished, finally, by understanding and redemption.
--Ethan Canin, author of Emperor of the Air and America, America
By the Iowa Sea is a sometimes angry, often startling, and always riveting journey through infidelity, drinking, storms, work, beauty, and the simultaneous frustration and sublimity of raising a disabled child. Blair's writing is vivid, his subjects are heartbreaking, and his ending is flat-out gorgeous.
--Anthony Doerr, author of Memory Wall
"Joe Blair portrays family life and his own emotional life with tremendous courage and a searing honesty. I admired the prose and the story as I read. I finished the book admiring the man.
--Chris Offutt, author of The Same River Twice
An intimate, startling memoir that honors and elevates our quotidian existence. With his contagious curiosity as to what drives him and what holds him back, Blair writes fearlessly and beautifully about the family he loves and also betrays, the people he treasures and plots to escape from. By The Iowa Sea is funny and unsettling, painful and rock and roll romantic, and it has the invigorating ring of truth on every page.
--Scott Spencer, author of Endless Love and Man in the Woods
Joe Blair writes with uncommon openness and pain about the pleasures and difficulties of marriage. He also conjures the beauty of the Iowa landscape--even under water. By the Iowa Sea includes one of the most touchingly funny sex scenes--or should I say--non-sex scenes Ive read. I am sure women and men will respond to his voice.

--Anne Taylor Fleming, author of Marriage: A Duet and As If Love Were Enough
"Eloquently gritty" * Elle Magaizne *
"[A] powerfully moving and redemptive account of... reckoning with disasters both natural and personal...[that] hits something close to the divine." * Shelf Awareness *

Author Bio

Joe Blair is a pipefitter who lives in Coralville, Iowa, with his wife and four children. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Iowa Review.