A Step from Death: A Memoir
by Larry Woiwode
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Book Summary Information
Author: Larry WoiwodeEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-28
ISBN: 1582433739
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Counterpoint
Book Reviews of A Step from Death: A Memoir
Book Review: An opportunity to reflect on life....
Summary: 5 Stars
Larry Woiwode and I go way back. But had my brother not sent me a review of "A Step From Death" I may not have ever learned of this marvelous book.
In 1940s Sykeston ND (pop. 250 soaking wet), our young lives intersected for four or so years, as did the lives of our parents. Larry once told me that I was perhaps "the tallest boy in the lower grades" in The Street, from his novel Beyond the Bedroom Wall.
The years since 1950 we've taken different paths. Only twice in those 58 years have we, as my Dad would have said, actually had a 'face-off', and those occasions occurred about 30 years ago.
I found A Step From Death to be a powerful book, reflective, written by (in no particular order) an author, husband, father, poet, farmer, son, neighbor....
I knew the bare basics of Larry's life, but A Step From Death, from it's first chapter, came not to be about his life, but about my own. Every page caused me to reflect on my own 68 years as a son; 44 as a father; almost 22 as a Grandpa, and on and on and on.
Did it make a difference if he went back from his front steps into his home to get a jacket? (The second sentence of the book). Of course it did.
But to me that vignette and all of the other snips from an abundant life drew me back into a review of my own life, now living as an "orphan" (both parents long departed), "on deck" in the natural order of things, moving towards my own inevitable end of life, now (and always) at my own "Step from Death".
Written as a long letter from father to son, A Step From Death might be seen as a man's book. I think not. "Care", Larry's spouse, and their daughters, are always present and integral, in all the roles family members play in each others lives.
I'll reread A Step from Death, next time slowly, only a single chapter at a sitting. It will be my Father's Day gift to my own son, now 44, and of the next generation.
Thank you, Larry.
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