Local & Regional

Tells the story of Ankie Foell, born of Dutch parents in a small Sumatran village in the former Dutch East Indies. She takes us through a childhood in the tropics, interrupted by three and a half years in a Japanese concentration camp, followed by a challenging transition and adolescence in the Netherlands, with another painful separation from her parents. Never feeling completely at home in the Netherlands, she emigrated to the United States, where she found her niche and career as a concert pianist and pedagogue and the opportunity to live and perform throughout the world, even in her birth country, now known as Indonesia. Woven through this story is Ankie's reflection and introspective analysis of how her life and identity have been influenced by her many journeys through Europe, Asia and North America, and particularly her childhood in the tropics.

Dale M. Kushner's novel The Conditions of Love traces the journey of a girl from childhood to adulthood as she reckons with her parents' abandonment, her need to break from society's limitations, and her overwhelming desire for spiritual and erotic love. In 1953, ten-year-old Eunice lives in the backwaters of Wisconsin with her outrageously narcissistic mother, a manicureeste and movie star worshipper. Abandoned by her father as an infant, Eunice worries that she will become a misfit like her mother. When her mother's lover, the devoted Sam, moves in, Eunice imagines her life will finally become normal. But her hope dissolves when Sam gets kicked out, and she is again alone with her mother. A freak storm sends Eunice away from all things familiar. Rescued by the shaman-like Rose, Eunice's odyssey continues with a stay in a hermit's shack and ends with a passionate love affair with an older man. Through her capacity to redefine herself, reject bitterness and keep her heart open, she survives and flourishes. In this, she is both ordinary and heroic. At once fable and realistic story, The Conditions of Love is a book about emotional and physical survival. Through sheer force of will, Eunice saves herself from a doomed life.

This engaging examination of a mother and daughter's relationship will appeal to the same audience that embraced Mona Simpson's acclaimed classic Anywhere But Here and Elizabeth Strout's bestselling Amy and Isabelle.

On a bracing autumn day in Door County, a prominent philanthropist disappears. Is the elderly Gerald Sneider-known as "Mr. Packer" for his legendary support of Green Bay football-suffering from dementia or just avoiding his greedy son? Is there a connection to threats against the National Football League? As tourists flood the peninsula for the fall colors, Sheriff Dave Cubiak's search for Sneider is stymied by the FBI. When human bones wash up on the Lake Michigan shore, the sheriff has more to worry about than a missing man.

You're invited to visit Deep Lakes, Wisconsin and meet a new friend, Francine "Frankie" Champagne. The 40-something owner of Bubble and Bake-bakery by day, wine lounge by night-Frankie is a spitfire pastry maker, vintner, and budding journalist.

Frankie finds herself on the perimeter of a suspicious death that upends the peaceful winter slumber in Deep Lakes when the local pastor is found dead inside his fishing shanty on Lake Loki. Frankie sticks her curious nose into the investigation, despite warnings from the local sheriff to leave it alone. But she has something to prove, maybe to the newspaper editor who wouldn't hire her as a reporter, maybe to herself as she searches for fulfillment. Regardless, her fierce independence won't allow her to back down. Follow Frankie as she stumbles upon one discovery after another, trails potential suspects, and solves the case!

In these humorous and heartfelt essays, Patti See celebrates small-town life in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley. Featuring childhood memories of supper clubs, thrift sales, and cribbage games, as well as the midlife concerns that accompany having a son in the military, a parent with Alzheimer's, and a private onsite septic system, See's writing praises the quirky charm of her hometown and its people.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s as the youngest of eight children, Patti never imagined she'd stay in Chippewa Falls as an adult. Now, living on rural Lake Hallie just five miles from her childhood home, she has a new appreciation for all that comes with country living, from ice fishing and eagle sightings to pontoon rides and tavern dice. These brief essays--many of which were originally published in the Sawdust Stories column of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram--establish that, above all else, it's friends, family, and other folks in our hometown who provide us with a sense of belonging.

From a masterful storyteller, comes a Midwestern epic that illuminates the majestic in the commonplace.

When David Rhodes burst onto the American literary scene in the 1970s, he was hailed as "a brilliant visionary" (John Gardner), and compared to Sherwood Anderson and Marilynne Robinson. In Driftless, his "most accomplished work yet" (Joseph Kanon), Rhodes brought Words, WI, to life in a way that resonated with readers across the country. Now with Jewelweed, this beloved author returns to the same out-of-the-way hamlet and introduces a cast of characters who all find themselves charged with overcoming the burdens left by the past, sometimes with the help of peach preserves or pie.

After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester is paroled and returns home. The story of Blake's hometown is one of challenge, change, and redemption, of outsiders and of limitations, and simultaneously one of supernatural happenings and of great love. Each of Rhodes's characters--flawed, deeply human, and ultimately universal--approach the future with a combination of hope and trepidation, increasingly mindful of the importance of community to their individual lives. Rich with a sense of empathy and wonder, Jewelweed offers a vision in which the ordinary becomes mythical.

2019 National Native American Hall of Fame Inductee

This stirring memoir is the story of Ada Deer, the first woman to serve as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Deer begins, "I was born a Menominee Indian. That is who I was born and how I have lived." She proceeds to narrate the first eighty-three years of her life, which are characterized by her tireless campaigns to reverse the forced termination of the Menominee tribe and to ensure sovereignty and self-determination for all tribes.

Deer grew up in poverty on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, but with the encouragement of her mother and teachers, she earned degrees in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University. Armed with a first-rate education, an iron will, and a commitment to justice, she went from being a social worker in Minneapolis to leading the struggle for the restoration of the Menominees' tribal status and trust lands.

Having accomplished that goal, she moved on to teach American Indian Studies at UW-Madison, to hold a fellowship at Harvard, to work for the Native American Rights Fund, to run unsuccessfully for Congress, and to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in the Clinton administration.

Now in her eighties, Deer remains as committed as ever to human rights, especially the rights of American Indians. A deeply personal story, written with humor and honesty, this book is a testimony to the ability of one individual to change the course of history through hard work, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to social justice.