What I Think I Did: A Season of Survival in Two Acts

by Larry Woiwode

In What I Think I Did, Larry Woiwode does two things at once: he survives the winter of 1996, the worst in North Dakota’s history, and tells the story of his beginnings as a writer, especially the early days at The New Yorker leading up to the publication of his first book, What I’m Going to Do, I Think.“Act One” revolves around the purchase, installation, and feeding of a giant wood-burning furnace to heat Woiwode’s farm through that winter’s record snow and cold. These acts form a central metaphor for exploring the sources of his writer’s craft and for pulling together the threads of his boyhood and family life. “Act Two” recounts his university life and early New York days, his beginning a writing career, and his friendship with the young Robert DeNiro. The material on the late William Maxwell, of The New Yorker, is riveting. More than almost any other writer, Woiwode has the capacity to astound with his words. In this memoir, he is at the top of his form.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Larry Woiwode was designated Poet Laureate of North Dakota by the Legislative Assembly in 1995. He served as Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973-74; and from 1983-88 was a tenured professor at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and director of its Creative Writing Program.

Larry Woiwode’s fiction has appeared in Antaeus, Antioch Review, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Harpers, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Partisan Review, and many other publications; his poetry has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, Poetry North, Tar River Poetry, Transatlantic Review, Works in Progress, and other publications and venues, including broadsides and anthologies.

His novels and his memoirs are widely acclaimed and his writings have been translated into a dozen languages and earned him international recognition: he is the recipient of the William Faulkner Foundation Award, 1969; has been a Guggenheim Fellow, 1971-72; a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, 1975; chosen by the American Association of Publishers for a novel to present to the White House Library, 1976; is recipient of an Award in Literature from the National Institute and American Academy of Arts & Letters, 1980; of the John Dos Passos Prize (for a diverse body of work), 1991; and of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, 2001. He has also received North Dakota’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Roughrider Award, conferred by Governor Sinner, in 1992; and in 2011 received the Emeritus Award from the High Plains Awards Committee, for “A Body of Work as Vast as the West.” His recent publications include Words Made Fresh, and The Invention of Lefse, published in 2011 by Crossway Books. His new novel Blackburn Bay is nearly ready to be viewed by agents and publishers, and in 2010 he completed a new book of short stories

Reviews

[Bert van der Vaart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange book to get into--Woiwode is a midwest product of the 1960s--graduating from Illinois (Urbana), he recounts how he got into writing, both poetry, short stories for the New Yorker, and novels. He does so frequently flashing forward to his efforts--more than ably assisted by his 14 year old son--to survive a blizzard and sub-sub zero winter storm on his farm in North Dakota. Once I got into the quasi-autobiography/present tense how to deal with the blizzard ping-pong, I began to enjoy the book. I would guess the author intended the "survival" through the storm to parallel his earlier "survival" as a fledgling want to be writer in New York. Through this oddly compelling journey--where the author was friends with people we now know ranging from Robert de Niro Jr to Norman Mailer and John Updike--Woiwode drops some beautiful images and even some occasional wisdom. For example, he is very aware when writing "that half the thought isn't in words, but an inner collusion of imagery and faith in intuition, only partly related to words. So I sit and try to translate my thoughts." While not by any mean a spiritual book, Woiwode also is unashamed to discuss some of marvels of his faith in God which have sustained him. So in the middle of his grousing and cynicism, his wife--who doubtless had had enough of listening to him asks him simply to pray. Writes Woiwode: "...sure, I'll pray, and lit into a prayer with such anger a hole indeed seemed to burn in the air. Then it opened to the presence I had forgotten, and I felt the ladder of Jacob's vision, with angels ascending and descending on it, descend on me, the Spirit pouring through me with such force that prayers for my wife and children...were pressed from me as never before in fifty years, and when I was spent and looked up I saw each of my family as if for the first time, transformed...Every person I hated or could not forgive appeared... I sensed the presence of each and knew who it was and was astonished at the smallness of my hate under the power passing through me." There are many other beautiful images--well worth reading although in my case, it took me well more than 100 pages before I found I could enjoy his honesty instead of resent what seemed at some level to be either name dropping or recondite knowledge only North Dakotan farmers would need to know. So for those who know something about the 1960's-1970's, like poetry, do not fear honesty about faith and "big questions", and have some respect for North Dakotan winters, this is a great book!

[River Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

It reads rather well and feels even better once read.

[Scott Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novelist Larry Woiwode's (author of "Beyond the Bedroom Wall") memoir is viewed through the extremely harsh 1996 winter in North Dakota. He portrays the New York literary circles of his youth, including his friendship with a young Robert DeNiro. The following line in Woiwode’s memoir especially resonates with me, "and if your career is your faith, then your God is as good as dead, once your work is, and so it goes." (p.255).

[Zak Brobst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a slog at first. The last 75 pages made it worthwhile.

[Scott Snider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Larry's best work since Beyond the Bedroom Wall. He maintained my interest from beginning to end. The description of winter was spot on.