Painting Beyond Walls

A Novel

David Rhodes (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

432 Seiten

2025
Milkweed Editions (Verlag)
978-1-63955-066-1 (ISBN)

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It is 2027. August Helm is thirty years old. A biochemist working in a lab at the University of Chicago, he is swept off his feet by the beautiful and entirely self-assured Amanda Clark. Animated by August’s consuming desire, their relationship quickly becomes intimate. But when he stumbles across a liaison between the director of his lab and a much younger student, his position is eliminated and his world upended.

August sets out to visit his parents in Words, an unincorporated village in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless area. Here, he reconnects with several characters from his past: Ivan Bookchester, who now advocates for “new ways of living” in an age of decline; Hanh, formerly known as Jewelweed, who tends her orchard and wild ginseng, keenly attuned to new patterns of migration resulting from climate change and habitat destruction; and Lester Mortal, the aging veteran and fierce pacifist who long ago rescued her from Vietnam. Together, the old friends fall back into a familiar closeness.

But much as things initially seem unchanged in the Driftless, when August is hired to look after Tom and April Lux’s home in Forest Gate, he finds himself amidst an entirely different social set, comprised of wealthy homeowners who are resented by poorer surrounding communities, and distanced, in turn, by their fear of the locals. August soon falls head over heels for April, and different versions of his self collide: one in which the past is still present in tensions and dreams, another in which he understands his desire as genetically determined and chemically induced, and then a vaguely hoped-for future with April. When Lester is diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, Ivan comes clean on a ghastly past episode, and April makes a shocking revelation, a series of events ensues that will change all involved forever.

As approachable as it is profound in exploring the human condition and our shared need for community, this is a story for our times.

David Rhodes was the author of Painting Beyond Walls. As a young man, he worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in rapid succession: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (Atlantic/Little, Brown, 1972), The Easter House (Harper & Row, 1974), and Rock Island Line (Harper & Row, 1975). In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him paraplegic. He continued writing, but did not publish again until 2008, with his celebrated novel, Driftless. Several years later, a sequel, Jewelweed, was published to wide acclaim. After another decade, he returned to American letters with this extraordinary novel, his only to be set in the future. David Rhodes lived with his wife, Edna, in Iowa City.

Contents

A Miniature Cage              xxx

Pale, Polished Wood           xxx

A Grief Unlike Any Other      xxx

Red Rooster Cafe              xxx

Determined Fidelities         xxx

Jet Lag                        xxx

Saws                          xxx

Working Wood                   xxx

The Glass Eye                 xxx

The Home Place                xxx

The Fish Room                 xxx

Eating Snakes                 xxx

The Flat Worm                 xxx

Dogs Play                      xxx

Shampoo                        xxx

Insects                        xxx

Whittling                      xxx

Carjacking[EA1]                  xxx

Player Piano                   xxx

Divine Madness                xxx

Visitors                       xxx

Violated                       xxx

Hot Biscuits                  xxx

Femicide                      xxx

Snow                           xxx

Links and Linkage             xxx

Living’s Bookends             xxx

The Service                    xxx

Gene Circling                 xxx

We Grew Up Together           xxx

Climax                         xxx

Epilogue                       xxx

Acknowledgments               xxx

[EA1]see note at chapter heading p266

Erscheint lt. Verlag	23.10.2025
Zusatzinfo	Illustrations
Verlagsort	Minneapolis
Sprache	englisch
Maße	139 x 215 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
ISBN-10	1-63955-066-6 / 1639550666
ISBN-13	978-1-63955-066-1 / 9781639550661
Zustand	Neuware