Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

This is a gem of a book! Being from Nebraska, (I live in the eastern portion of the state by Omaha) I appreciated Price's descriptions of Midwest life. Never hokey (it ain't all apple pie and tractors, you know!), with a fair acknowledgement of the struggles and a beautiful portrayal of the triumphs, Price's experience is as universal as it can get. Camp, drama club, then graduation and marriage, the collection of essays serve as snapshots of his life, yet are all connected though his consistent focus on place and environment as he deftly describes both the landscapes he encounters and their affect on him. I found his experiences interesting and poignant, yet he relates them with an easy, self-deprecating voice that at times left me laughing out loud (I was reading this on a plane and had to stifle my laughter many times!), and at times moved me nearly to tears. The prose is outstanding, with beautiful descriptions mixed in with the humor, creating a text that is covers the breadth of human experience more completely than similar works I have read. It hard to find that balance between sentiment and humor, but Prices executes it well. I would highly recommend this work, not only to those Midwesterners who can relate to his experiences, but to all readers who want to spend a quite afternoon getting to know an interesting person.

Man Killed By Pheasant and Other Kinships offers the author's journey from an isolated childhood in rural Iowa to a journey to relationships and life in the mountains of Idaho. His description of landscapes and rugged rural environments compliment his surveys of human relationships and lives, enhancing a wonderful account of closeness to nature and people alike.

John Price is a gifted essayist, deft at interweaving and interrogating experience until the complete fabric of a deeply examined life emerges. These discrete pieces interlock to form a memoir that traces the growth of Price's consciousness from credulous boyhood through a first encounter with loss, when the younger brother his mother was expecting doesn't come home with her from the hospital, and on through career discovery, marriage, and the inevitable deaths of grandparents until he finds himself the father of his own credulous, wild sons. Wildness, in Price's view, is what the Midwest needs most and what it has lost. He searches for it, but is thrown back, over and over, on the domestic or the invasive species, most often us, and must find his meaning there, here. He does find it, movingly and perceptively. He works this magic over and over, pulling insight from the common hats we all wear, but seldom as consciously. Neatest of all, he laughs, and us with him, almost every step of the way. Many of the pieces were first published in Orion, a literary environmental journal and one of the finest magazines in print today. Others, such as "Night Rhythms," "What Kind of Light," and "Prairie Asinus" are worthy of publication in the New Yorker.

Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships, by John T. Price, is an extraordinarily engaging memoir. Unless an author himself or herself is world famous, a writer's personality and authenticity of voice are the most important drivers in a memoir. While he might not be world famous, Price has a wonderfully warm humanity and an engaging prose style that makes Man Killed by Pheasant a must read. In this book of seventeen artfully arranged essays, Price leads the reader through the first forty years of his life growing up in Iowa in a family sensibly Swedish in heritage and inescapably American in its vexations and triumphs. Price grounds his memoir with an essay about growing up on Haskell Street in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he basked in the attention and approval of his great-aunt Esther. From her, he learned some Swedish and would pray: "Gud some haver barnen kar, Se till mig som liten ar." (God who loves the children, watch over me who is little.) And this image of a small boy fragile before the world is a motif that Price carries throughout his childhood and into adulthood. Often hilariously so, as he recounts the myriad and typical ventures of a young man trying vainly to attract girls in spite of his small stature and uncertain social status. One of the most engaging aspects of Price's narrative is his self-deprecating humor. In one scene he describes himself attempting to date the center on the women's basketball squad only to have the relationship dissolve because he supposes the basketball center gets a strain in her neck for bending down to kiss him. One of my favorite essays, "High Maintenance," describes Price's hapless attempts to be an on-site manager and handyman for some student apartments at the University of Iowa. Describing himself as completely inept with tools and in making repairs, Price shows himself to be a master of human relationships. Defying the owner's prohibition of all pets by residents, Price not only allows the residents to bring in an astonishing array of pets but he also is actively complicit in helping them outwit the soul-less owner. Through his sympathetic complicity, Price helps the residents create a real sense of shared community. It's a heartwarming essay. Price's range of voice extends to the heartbreaking, too. "Night Rhythms" recounts his work at an in-patient ward in a children's hospital. His patients are all severely handicapped children and Price's empathy for them and anguish about their fate in an unfeeling bureaucratic world is touching. Many of the latter essays in Man Killed by Pheasant describe his courtship of his wife, Stephanie and the getting and rearing of their two sons, Ben and Spencer. It is a charming and funny account of a man moving through the stages of early-middle life. It is a journey you will want to take with this writer--a guide of exceptional feelings, insights, good humor, and great wisdom.