Publishers Weekly
01/28/2019
Journalism professor Dowling (Surviving the Afterlife) charts the 83-year life of one of the nation’s leading writing programs, zooming in on specific writers with a granularity that hampers his ambitiously scaled narrative. Starting with the program’s 1940s rise to prominence, Dowling moves chronologically, focusing on the tricky balancing act of turning out writers equipped for both commercial and literary success. However, Dowling too often detours into anecdotes unrelated to this central theme. For instance, he recounts a bar fight between then-workshop student John Irving and another student who had called Irving’s favorite professor, Kurt Vonnegut, a “science fiction hack.” More pertinently, Dowling discusses how Marilynne Robinson’s rise to fame outside the workshop “has relied on the power of commercial media—despite her principled renunciation of it.” He observes that Robinson strongly opposes the current University of Iowa president for being a corporate veteran with no academic experience, an apt illustration of the conflict between academe and commerce at the book’s heart. Dowling is at his best when showing how this quandary relates to the outside world, demonstrating why the story of the workshop matters to more than just those who’ve passed through its hallowed classrooms. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
[A] history of America’s most famous creative-writing program . . . [that] opens with the boozing, brawling John Berryman—he of the ‘blow-torch approach’ to teaching—receiving a punch from a student.”—Hermione Hoby, New Yorker“[An] ambitiously scaled narrative . . . focusing on the tricky balancing act of turning out writers equipped for both commercial and literary success.”—Publishers Weekly“This is a delightful and accessible overview of the workshop, its history, and its impact on American letters.”—C. E. O’Neill, Choice“I read this in two or three days because I just couldn’t stop. It’s densely packed with information and well researched . . . disturbing and compelling. . . . If you’ve ever been interested in MFA programs or even just Iowa’s infamous workshop, this is a must-read.”—Jaime Herndon, Book Riot“[Dowling] conveys both the brilliance of the writers and faculty as well as the often contentious workshop methods . . . His insights are unsparing and honest, his criticisms are founded on documented events, and his praise is appropriate and measured.”—Dennis Healy, Telegraph Herald“This book provides readers with a rich history of how the nation’s most important writing program has had an outsized impact on American literary and commercial culture.”—David Haven Blake, College of New Jersey“David Dowling’s A Delicate Aggression is irresistible reading. It is a fascinating window into the intimate workings of evolving talent and cross-hatching of competition and support in literary communities.”—Shirley Goek-Lin Lim, University of California, Santa Barbara“A fascinating look at the way writers are taught how to teach themselves how to write. I spent six years in a similar workshop and can still hear their voices in my head.”—Steve Berry, author of The Malta Exchange“Here lie the Workshop’s secrets, its lore, its pride and exclusions, its intimacies and competitions, its ‘innovations of the business of letters,’ its unapologetic and promising talents.”—Annie Liontas, author of Let Me Explain You“David Dowling’s A Delicate Aggression isn’t just a meticulously researched and elegantly wrought history of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. It is also an essential and acute portrait of American literature since World War I. And beyond that it is a compelling portrait gallery of some of this country’s most interesting literary personalities, an insider’s travel guide to Iowa City, and a compelling and propulsive read.”—Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs
