Ebook A Delicate Aggression Savagery and Survival in the Iowa Writers' Workshop David O Dowling 9780300215847 Books

Product details Hardcover 440 pages Publisher Yale University Press (March 26, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 0300215843

A Delicate Aggression Savagery and Survival in the Iowa Writers' Workshop David O Dowling 9780300215847 Books Reviews

• This is a canny, deeply-researched, impressive history of the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop – no easy task. But Dowling pulls it off in an innovative manner. Rather than dealing with a narrow institutional history or a book booming with tales of hard-drinking, he organizes around various authors, from Flannery O’Connor to Ayana Mathis, with W.D. Snodgrass, Robert Lowell, Jane Smiley, Rita Dove, and Anthony Swofford, among others in between. In the narrative, where we follow the progress, and ruts, that each writer faced in the program, we also learn how the experience shaped both writer and work. Dowling never ignores the nexus between institution building, on the part of its directors, and connections with the publishing industry. He also uses particular writers to capture certain issues (Dove, Cisneros, and others for racism or sexism). In many ways, the Workshop, despite some relatively benign teachers such as Marilynne Robinson, comes off as a table for huge egos, often bounteous talents, and mean-spiritedness. Yet, by some sort of Darwinian alchemy, many excellent works and close friendships emerged from the cauldron. Issues of drunkenness, suicide, professionalism, celebrity, genre, and more are engaged via each chapter dealing with an individual who is seen as exemplary of one of those aspects. Some writers are at the top of their game now, Smiley, Mathis, T.C. Boyle, while others never made it big. I was especially taken with the work of Marguerite Young who, even in this ecosphere of eccentrics, manages to stand out. For all of its foibles – and Dowling does not pull punches – the impression remains that the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, by hook or by crook, by enmity or prestige, helped to birth some mighty important writing. This book is a must for anyone interested in the institution of writing and various associated issues.