My Father’s War

Stories of Midwestern Men

2000
Author:

Barton Sutter

Poignant and revealing stories from one of the Midwest’s leading authors.

In this collection of stories, Barton Sutter shows us all the ways in which we are shaped by our surroundings. With an unswerving gaze, he portrays the rituals of growing up that we all experience, no matter how old we think we are.

These magnificent stories are big-hearted and loving in a way I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. With a calm and compassionate hand Barton Sutter reveals to us the true dignity of humankind, the necessity of heroes and history, and the unerring aim of hope. My Father’s War is a beautiful book.

Bret Lott

Poignant and revealing stories from one of the Midwest’s leading authors.

"A compelling debut. These stories offer leisurely exposition and character development. . . . Their honesty and sensitivity will resonate." Publishers Weekly

"These are wonderful stories-images of personal and societal growth that are at once hopeful and skeptical, loving and shrewd." New Orleans Times-Picayune

"These magnificent stories are big-hearted and loving in a way I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. With a calm and compassionate hand, Barton Sutter reveals to us the true dignity of humankind, the necessity of heroes and history, and the unerring aim of hope. My Father’s War is a beautiful book." Bret Lott

In this collection of stories, Barton Sutter shows us all the ways in which we are shaped by our surroundings. With an unswerving gaze, he portrays the rituals of growing up that we all experience, no matter how old we think we are.

Barton Sutter is the author of Cold Comfort (Minnesota, 1998) and three books of poetry, most recently The Book of Names (1993). His work has appeared in dozens of magazines, including Minnesota Monthly and North American Review. He makes his home in Duluth, Minnesota.

Tenderly rendered, memorable in characterization, and strongly tied to place.

Kirkus

A compelling debut. The five stories offer leisurely exposition and character development. Their honesty and sensitivity will resonate.

Publishers Weekly

These stories are astonishingly good. It’s possible to live life to the absolute, ecstatic fullest in northern Minnesota, or it’s possible to screw up, make the wrong choices, squander your years meaninglessly in the Midwest. Scariest of all, it’s possible to live next to lives of great meaning and not recognize that fact.

Caroline See, Los Angeles Times Book Review

A finely crafted collection, solid as a cedar strip canoe and earthy as a John Deere tractor just in from plowing. A worthwhile read.

The Ripsaw

Sutter’s tales are set in small towns where stray dogs find homes on strangers’ porches, on icy rivers where young men breast raging rapids, and at snowed-in farmhouses of old men with secrets to tell. Yet it isn’t Sutter’s Minnesota woods or Iowa farmlands that will attract readers, it’s the men he plants there.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

If there is one book that could be given with complete faith to anyone interested in real fiction or any aspiring writer, My Father’s War would be this one.

Pittsburgh Press

These are wonderful stories—images of personal and societal growth that are at once hopeful and skeptical, loving and shrewd.

New Orleans Times-Picayune

These magnificent stories are big-hearted and loving in a way I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. With a calm and compassionate hand Barton Sutter reveals to us the true dignity of humankind, the necessity of heroes and history, and the unerring aim of hope. My Father’s War is a beautiful book.

Bret Lott

I don’t know when I’ve read a writer so good, so readable.

J. F. Powers

Barton Sutter’s stories sneak up on you. But then, they seem to take by surprise even their tellers, laconic Midwesterners stunned by the fire of their own lives. The landscapes are the classic male testing grounds of north woods, of camping and hunting, and most tellingly, of war. But with a difference: in the masterful title story, history itself, with all its griefs and reconciliations, is given voice as a World War II father tells his story to his Vietnam-era peacenik sons. His tale casts a benediction—and a claim—on us all.

Patricia Hampl

CONTENTS

YOU AIN T DEAD YET
DON' T STICK YOUR ELBOW
OUT TOO FAR
HAPPINESS
VERY TRULY OURS
BLACKIE
MY FATHER' S WAR