71 books like Leaning Into The Wind

Cheri Register grew up in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1950s and 60s, in a working-class home.

When she was 14, a strike in a meatpacking plant created deep divisions within the town and brought national attention when the National Guard was called out to maintain order. As a teenager Register felt acutely the social tensions and class conflicts inherent in such a situation.

In this book she elegantly weaves together her personal coming-of-age story and her own family’s history with details of the strike gathered from archives as well as conversations with those who lived through it.

With sensitivity, humor, affection, and respect for the people of her hometown Register has written a classic American story with a focus on class issues that remain to be resolved. 

This book takes on class, gender, and addiction, plus a host of other contemporary issues facing rural America and the nation—and Smarsh still manages to craft a compelling, human memoir.

This book might be the antidote to all the easy, anodyne, partisan conclusions the talking heads offer about rural America. As someone who grew up in rural America but now lives in a small city on the West Coast, I felt challenged reading this memoir.

Smarsh is the best kind of rabble-rouser; she’s telling it straight no matter who is listening. 

Ian Frazier’s exploration of his own family’s history takes the reader on a fascinating deep (and broad) dive into American history.

What begins as a chance discovery of letters written between his parents as a young couple leads him inexorably back into the far-reaching branches of his family tree, and a unique perspective on American life from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.

David McCullough called this book a ”remarkable history of an unremarkable family.” The author’s keen curiosity, masterful storytelling, and elegant prose kept me spellbound. I read this book when it first came out, and it was one of those books that for a while I couldn’t stop telling everyone to read.

I’ve never forgotten it, and now I think I’m about to read it again.

In this collection of essays, Bill Holm honors the history, the heritage, the people, and the land surrounding his hometown of Mineota, Minnesota. After extensive travels and life in other places, he ends up back in a town that he never wanted to return to; but having landed there, he finds his way to an appreciation of that place and its people.

In this book he pays tribute to the depth and richness that can be found—given the right attitude—anywhere on earth, including in a small town on the prairie.  

Jim Northrup, Fond du lac Ojibwe author, was my writing mentor from the time I met him in 1991 until he passed away in 2015. He would always ask, “What are you writing today?” That was his way of encouraging me to keep writing. His crime novel, Dirty Copper is the story of Luke Warmwater, who returns to the Reservation after serving in Vietnam. Luke becomes a deputy sheriff on the Rez and sees firsthand the war raging below the appearance of peace.

I would listen to Jim talk about his writing and the progress he was making on his story as he wrote it. Listening to him encouraged me to keep going with my writing. Jim’s way of storytelling through the written word is something I have tried to emulate.

Set before, during, and after the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862, The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman uses fiction to effectively convey the trauma of one of Minnesota’s most tragic events. Using well-developed, relatable characters, Maltman works hard to intertwine people and places in a way that is emotionally moving. Maltman includes numerous historic facts along with culturally relevant details that work to make the novel incredibly interesting, while making the characters and their journeys very compelling. Finally, he manages to capture the pain and suffering of Dakota and white characters alike. It’s a slow, but highly rewarding read. 

Tired of spaceships and A.I.? Then how about a humorous take on sci-fi horror? If Twin Peaks were a comedy…and also a book…it would’ve been Anomaly Flats. Weird, disturbing events abound in this quaint Midwestern town where an ancient evil lurks behind the canned goods at the local Walmart, and–since they weren’t trying to kill me personally–many of them were hilarious. Or at least the way the characters reacted to them were hilarious. And in the end, isn’t that close enough?

First off, I love the classics, and Steinbeck was a master. I recommend this book because it makes an appearance in my book. Tortilla was an inspiration. I loved the way Steinbeck casually described the average goings-on, for an average day, with average people. Sometimes novels don’t need to be bursting with conflict. And Steinbeck was a setting pro, I saw his little town and felt it. Vignettes were relatable individually and as one whole tale. Tragedy, comedy, and humor were all there, and totally accessible in one of Steinbeck’s less serious endeavors.

Toews is a Canadian writer, not Midwestern, but I’m from Michigan and we tend to lump Canada in with us whenever possible. My list, my rules. The book takes place in the adorable town of Algren with heroine Knute and her daughter Summer Feelin’ as well as a cast of other quirky lovable small-town characters. Toews has the ability to write sweet and funny small-town stories without pandering to stereotypical character tropes. Whenever I think of this book, I think of the peaceful feeling it gave me one summer, reading on my porch steps or leaned over my grocery cart in line for checkout, whenever I had two free minutes to read. Toews later fiction is quite a bit darker and she does that well too, but I always love to sink into her earlier works when I want something feel-good.

Cynthia Ozick's 1983 novel is set in a Midwestern academy founded by a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied France who wants to offer students a “dual curriculum” combining traditional Jewish religious instruction with the secular liberal arts. Eventually, this principal comes into conflict with a brilliant philosopher who insists that he not judge her under-achieving daughter too quickly when she becomes a student at the school. Ozick’s richly descriptive prose recreates the horrors of 1940s Europe and the placidity of the midcentury American Midwest as she surveys the dangers of American assimilation and anti-intellectualism with all the rigor we'd expect of a novelist who doubles as one of our best essayists. As a teacher myself, I recognize the anxieties of pedagogy Ozick portrays—how do we know when and if we’re doing justice to our students?—and I would recommend it to anyone who teaches at any level.