The Night We Landed on the Moon: Essays between Exile & Belonging

by Debra Marquart

Debra Marquart’s newest memoir, an assemblage of essays, explores the space between states of exile and belonging, the seemingly irresolvable dilemma of the restless homebody. Marquart was born into a family of land-loving people―farmers known as the ethnic group Germans-from-Russia―who had emigrated from Russia to the United States between 1886 and 1911 and taken up land claims in Dakota Territory. Her grandparents tended their farms and fields, never dreaming of moving another inch away from the homes they had made. By contrast, Marquart grew up a restless, imaginative child in that same agricultural place, yearning to strike out for places more interesting as soon as she was old enough to take flight. All seemed simple enough until Marquart realized that her family’s stubborn attachment to place grew out of a traumatic multi-generational history of flight, migration, dispossession, and exile from their previous homelands in Europe. Her grandfathers and all her great-grandparents had emigrated to the United States from villages in south Russia, along the Black Sea. And, in a familial pattern going back several more generations, their own great-grandparents had experienced a traumatic uprooting one hundred years earlier when they fled the Rhine region of western Europe on the run from the chaos of the French Revolution. Her more distant ancestors had migrated east along the Danube in 1803 to reach their land claims in south Russia, just as her more immediate ancestors had fled their villages in south Russia to come west to America. As Marquart researched her family history, the revelation about multi-generational patterns of forcible removal from homelands helped her to contextualize her own complicated relationship with ideas of exile and belonging. She realized she came by her restlessness honestly, an American kid weaned on wanderlust and the promise of education calling her to leave home and never return. In The Night We Landed on the Moon, Marquart works out the tensions between divergent impulses―the restlessness in the feet to always move forward into the world, mixed with the opposing desire to turn around, look back, and sometimes even settle in and claim to belong.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 2021

About the author

Debra Marquart is a professor of English at Iowa State University. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Marquart's work has appeared in numerous journals such as The North American Review, Three Penny Review, New Letters, River City, Crab Orchard Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, The Sun Magazine, Southern Poetry Review, Orion, Mid-American Review and Witness.

In the seventies and eighties, Marquart was a touring road musician with rock and heavy metal bands. Her collection of short stories, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories draws from her experiences as a female road musician. Marquart continues to perform with a jazz-poetry rhythm & blues project, The Bone People, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade (acoustic rock), and A Regular Dervish (jazz-poetry).

Marquart's work has received numerous awards and commendations, including the John Guyon Nonfiction Award (Crab Orchard Review), the Mid-American Review Nonfiction Award, The Headwater's Prize from New Rivers Press, the Minnesota Voices Award, the Pearl Poetry Award (Pearl Editions), the Shelby Foote Prize for the Essay from the Faulkner Society, a Pushcart Prize, and a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.

A performance poet, Marquart is the author of two poetry collections: Everything's a Verb and From Sweetness. Her memoir, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere, was published by Counterpoint Books in 2006. It received the "Elle Lettres" award from Elle Magazine and the 2007 PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award. Marquart is currently at work on a novel, set in Greece, titled The Olive Harvest, and a roots memoir about emigration, geographical flight, and cultural amnesia titled Somewhere Else this Time Tomorrow.

Reviews

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere, these beautifully written and thoughtful essays are reflections on Marquart's life in Napoleon, North Dakota and her experiences after leaving home for college, pursuing a ten-year on-the-road gig in a rock band, finishing college, and her subsequent career as a college professor. There may have been one or two essays that I was not as engaged by, but over all, I found them moving and insightful. She may be the Iowa poet laureate, but she's a North Dakota treasure.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am learning this year how much I love reading collected essays, and I wonder why it has taken me so long to discover this. I chose this book because I knew Debra Marquart's writing. Her memoir The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere remains one of my favorites -- partly because I share her deep love for her Midwestern roots. This collection also taps into her past, and her dedication to learning more about her German-Russian ancestors who immigrated from eastern Europe colors much of her writing. And actually, my only criticism is that there were several repetitive passages on this topic. But sprinkled throughout are also hilarious stories of her childhood and thoughtful reflections on family and home that brought me to tears. Final note: the artwork on the cover is absolutely beautiful.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky to have met the author recently (she’s the Poet Laureate for Iowa), when she spent a couple days at our Hearst Center for the Arts, reading from her books and holding a writer’s workshop. What a talent! I bought this book of essays from her, as well as a book of her poetry. The only reason I gave this 3 stars is because some of the essays repeated things. I would love it if Debra would write a novel—I’d be first in line!

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is a personal experience to me as I was 4 years younger than Debra Marquart growing up in the same small ND town. I was there. I lived the same events and knew the same people. Rockus was my next door neighbor!
I love Debra's style of writing and gift of word usage all mixed with wonderful humor.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like listening to Deb over coffee in comfy chairs as she tells stories, recommends books to read, and exclaims, "did you know..?" Always astounded by the depth and breadth of her knowledge and experience and wisdom. As in her memoir, The Horizontal World, she brings her stories to the page with graceful prose and warm wit.

[Jill Kandel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deb Marquart's writing is always worth reading. Following her life and thinking through these gorgeous essays a delight!

[Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent essays by a North Dakota raised author.