Leaning Into The Wind: A Memoir Of Midwest Weather - Softcover

Susan Allen Toth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081664263X ISBN 13: 9780816642632

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2006

Synopsis

Midwesterners love to talk about the weather, approaching the vagaries and challenges of extreme temperatures, deep snow, and oppressive humidity with good-natured complaining, peculiar pride, and communal spirit. Such a temperamental climate can at once terrify and disturb, yet offer unparalleled solace and peace.Leaning into the Wind is a series of ten intimate essays in which Susan Allen Toth, who has spent most of her life in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, reveals the ways in which weather has challenged and changed her perceptions about herself and the world around her. She describes her ever-growing awareness of and appreciation for how the weather marks the major milestones of her life. Toth explores issues as large as weather and spirituality in “Who Speaks in the Pillar of Cloud?” and topics as small as a mosquito in “Things That Go Buzz in the Night.” In “Storms,” a severe thunderstorm becomes a continuing metaphor for the author’s troubled first marriage. Two essays, one from the perspective of childhood and one from late middle age, ponder how the weather seems different at various stages of life but always provides unexpected opportunities for self-discovery, change, and renewal. The perfect entertainment for anyone who loved Toth’s previous books on travel and memoir, Leaning into the Wind offers engaging and personal insights on the delights and difficulties of Midwest weather. Susan Allen Toth is the author of several books, including Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood (1981), My Love Affair with England (1992), England As You Like It (1995), and England for All Seasons (1997). She has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harper’s, and Vogue. She lives in Minneapolis.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In today's turbulent world, there's certainly something to be said for Toth's almost fervent passion for the most universal of good old American topics: the weather. In this compilation of personal essays, she takes our favorite "stuff" to fill awkward silences or interchanges by the office water cooler and makes it feel meaningful, even deep. At its best, this deepening of an American obsession is intriguing. At its worst, Toth's inexhaustible attempt to use weather as a metaphor for the turmoil in her own life is like two weeks of record heat in July. At first you are amused, put on your bathing suit, maybe even get a tan. By day six, however, you are far less amused by the same sun glaring down on you every time you try to step outside to run an errand. One hundred twenty-four pages of Toth's parallels between her own reactions to various weather conditions and greater truths about her personality and those of her loved ones is, ultimately, boring. Toth's intentions are good; she identifies her passions (previously she published a trilogy on England) and then uses them as the framework to tell her own stories. Her prose is well crafted and meticulously edited, but no amount of refinement can change the bottom line: this memoir is best left for a rainy day.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 081664263X
• ISBN 13: 9780816642632
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144