 |
|
| Larry Woiwode | |
Larry Woiwode, the author of "lyrical, expansive novels, short stories, poems and essays, mostly planted in the American West, that explored the power of place, family ties and faith, spiritual and otherwise," died April 28, the New York Times reported. He was 80. Woiwode's 1975 novel, Beyond the Bedroom Wall, "a 600-page saga about four generations of a North Dakota farming clan, established his place in American letters. For its epic sweep, elegant language and essential themes, he was compared to Dickens, Melville and Tolstoy."
For a decade as a young writer, Woiwode had been "teetering on the edge of literary stardom" under the mentorship of legendary editor William Maxwell, who, like Woiwode, had grown up in a small town in Illinois and gone to the state university's Urbana-Champaign campus. The Times noted that Maxwell "was both lodestar and protector when, at 24, Mr. Woiwode moved to New York, where he lived on beer and candy bars in an East Village room on St. Marks Place that rented for $9 a week. Mr. Maxwell would bring him sandwiches for lunches they shared on benches in Central Park."
When Woiwode's first novel, What I'm Going to Do, I Think (1969), was bought by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, he "was delighted by the venerable publishing house's essential grubbiness, its cubicles 'packed like a milliner going out of business,' he wrote in his memoir What I Think I Did (2000), just like the equally grubby offices of his beloved New Yorker. (A second memoir, A Step from Death, came out in 2008.)," the Times wrote. What I'm Going to Do, I Think won the William Faulkner Foundation Award for the most notable first novel of the year and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Ultimately, New York was not his home. In 1978, he and his wife bought a 160-acre farm 12 miles from the nearest tiny town in North Dakota, which they farmed themselves. The place nurtured the family as well as Woiwode's work. His books included five novels, two short story collections, two memoirs, a collection of essays about the Bible and a collection of poetry, Even Tide.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said: "Larry Woiwode inspired and mentored countless writers during his long and distinguished career. Through it all, he always remembered his North Dakota roots, from serving as our state's poet laureate since 1995 to conducting many classes and workshops for aspiring writers in his home state. His award-winning work earned widespread praise and instilled immense pride in his fellow North Dakotans. Kathryn and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends and all who found joy and inspiration in his writing."