University of Iowa Press, 2012 Paper: 978-1-60938-078-6 | eISBN: 978-1-60938-095-3 Library of Congress Classification F474.M315J64 2012 Dewey Decimal Classification 977.827
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A series of vividly rendered personal narratives, Trespasses: A Memoir recounts the coming of age of three generations in the rural Great Plains. In examining how class, race, and gender play out in the lives of two farm families who simultaneously love and hate the place they can’t escape, Lacy Johnson presents rural whiteness as an ethnicity worthy of study. As she dismantles the complex history of a forgotten place while fighting to keep its people whole, Johnson reflects on a place that outsiders can cross into or pass through, but may never fully know. From formal and informal research methods, Johnson has produced an innovative collection of prose poems and essays that together create an exciting work of contemporary nonfiction.
Examining region through the lenses of memory (experience), history (memory made public), and theory (experience abstracted), Trespasses is a deeply intelligent work, at the center of which is the author, always feeling as if she doesn’t belong but not sure where she else she should be. In this profound work, Johnson drifts gracefully back and forth between timelines and voices in a way that illustrates how her present is connected to the many pasts she chronicles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Lacy M. Johnson worked as a cashier at WalMart, sold steaks door-to-door, and puppeteered with a traveling children’s museum before earning a PhD from University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. She has taught writing for over a decade. Her creative and critical work has appeared in Sentence, TriQuarterly Online, Memoir (and), Gulf Coast and elsewhere. Excerpts can be found at <www.lacymjohnson.com>.
REVIEWS
“Utterly hip, while at the same time a voice from another era, Trespasses is about ‘growing up in a poor farming town in the Great Plains,’ an examination of the term ‘white trash’ through interviews, research, and memory, and an evocation of a place many of us will never see. Yet, at its heart, it is a lyric evocation of self. Plainspoken, tattooed, and brilliant, Lacy Johnson pushes the boundaries of what memoir—and, perhaps more importantly, what any of us—can be.”—Nick Flynn
“I was riveted by Trespasses—written with the haunting interiority of poetry and the compelling drive of prose. Much like being caught in a novel by Faulkner or Morrison, I found myself thinking about large important issues without initially understanding how Lacy Johnson’s language carried me there.”—Claudia Rankine
“The middle of nowhere for some is her home in rural Missouri for Lacy Johnson, and it’s a place she loves but where she cannot stay. That trouble of her heart is beautifully mapped in the quiet, beguiling Trespasses. Writing in a multiplicity of voices that surprise but also ring true, Johnson digs into the notions of ‘home’ with a clear-eyed reverence for family and the emblems of Middle America: silo and sparrow nest, shotgun and sewing table.”—Ryan Van Meter, author, If You Knew Then What I Know Now
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Prologue
rural route one
2006
1944
still life with coffee
1945
2006
1947
1990
1950
inside joke
1986
2006
still life with bacon
rural route one
2006
1952
1986
on the other hand
1955
same joke
2006
1960
1961
rural route one
a slur
random facts
1987
1963
2006
different joke
1964
1988
random facts
2006
1988
rural route one
cast out
1965
1964
1992
moon blindness
1967
1967
1989
2006
1968
still life with paperback
1968
1969
witness
trespasses
jackson street
1992
1973
1995
2006
liturgy
1978
prodigal daughter
random facts
1993
2006
ars poetica
1994
whitegate drive
1996
white / trash
2006
punchline
1997
what I had on my sixty-third day in New York City
2006
still life with picture window
2001
2004
2005
2006
university heights
notes
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Iowa Press, 2012 Paper: 978-1-60938-078-6 eISBN: 978-1-60938-095-3
A series of vividly rendered personal narratives, Trespasses: A Memoir recounts the coming of age of three generations in the rural Great Plains. In examining how class, race, and gender play out in the lives of two farm families who simultaneously love and hate the place they can’t escape, Lacy Johnson presents rural whiteness as an ethnicity worthy of study. As she dismantles the complex history of a forgotten place while fighting to keep its people whole, Johnson reflects on a place that outsiders can cross into or pass through, but may never fully know. From formal and informal research methods, Johnson has produced an innovative collection of prose poems and essays that together create an exciting work of contemporary nonfiction.
Examining region through the lenses of memory (experience), history (memory made public), and theory (experience abstracted), Trespasses is a deeply intelligent work, at the center of which is the author, always feeling as if she doesn’t belong but not sure where she else she should be. In this profound work, Johnson drifts gracefully back and forth between timelines and voices in a way that illustrates how her present is connected to the many pasts she chronicles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Lacy M. Johnson worked as a cashier at WalMart, sold steaks door-to-door, and puppeteered with a traveling children’s museum before earning a PhD from University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. She has taught writing for over a decade. Her creative and critical work has appeared in Sentence, TriQuarterly Online, Memoir (and), Gulf Coast and elsewhere. Excerpts can be found at <www.lacymjohnson.com>.
REVIEWS
“Utterly hip, while at the same time a voice from another era, Trespasses is about ‘growing up in a poor farming town in the Great Plains,’ an examination of the term ‘white trash’ through interviews, research, and memory, and an evocation of a place many of us will never see. Yet, at its heart, it is a lyric evocation of self. Plainspoken, tattooed, and brilliant, Lacy Johnson pushes the boundaries of what memoir—and, perhaps more importantly, what any of us—can be.”—Nick Flynn
“I was riveted by Trespasses—written with the haunting interiority of poetry and the compelling drive of prose. Much like being caught in a novel by Faulkner or Morrison, I found myself thinking about large important issues without initially understanding how Lacy Johnson’s language carried me there.”—Claudia Rankine
“The middle of nowhere for some is her home in rural Missouri for Lacy Johnson, and it’s a place she loves but where she cannot stay. That trouble of her heart is beautifully mapped in the quiet, beguiling Trespasses. Writing in a multiplicity of voices that surprise but also ring true, Johnson digs into the notions of ‘home’ with a clear-eyed reverence for family and the emblems of Middle America: silo and sparrow nest, shotgun and sewing table.”—Ryan Van Meter, author, If You Knew Then What I Know Now
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Prologue
rural route one
2006
1944
still life with coffee
1945
2006
1947
1990
1950
inside joke
1986
2006
still life with bacon
rural route one
2006
1952
1986
on the other hand
1955
same joke
2006
1960
1961
rural route one
a slur
random facts
1987
1963
2006
different joke
1964
1988
random facts
2006
1988
rural route one
cast out
1965
1964
1992
moon blindness
1967
1967
1989
2006
1968
still life with paperback
1968
1969
witness
trespasses
jackson street
1992
1973
1995
2006
liturgy
1978
prodigal daughter
random facts
1993
2006
ars poetica
1994
whitegate drive
1996
white / trash
2006
punchline
1997
what I had on my sixty-third day in New York City
2006
still life with picture window
2001
2004
2005
2006
university heights
notes
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE