Making Magic
Metaphor as a way more deeply in.
This past week we had a run of bright, blue-sky days here in the Yamhill Valley of Western Oregon. The dogwoods put on a show, and rhododendrons shivered open, the whole town perfumed with lilac. In our front garden, the first columbine blossom stretched and unfurled. I decided, finally, it resembled a tiny, rose-gold trombone.
Things are always themselves—and more. We’ve been talking in my writing classes this semester about the magic of metaphor, the way one thing becomes another, how we see this and see that simultaneously, how we are often here and very far away, how we move forward even as memory swirls and shifts and every now and again stills into clarity inside us.
We are at the hinge of the academic year at the university, the busiest moment. And we are busy at home, too, with all the usual rush and bluster of a household. And the world, as it too often does, teems with injustice and tragedy and terrible sadness.
Metaphor, I think, might be a way not out of the real, but more deeply in. The mute, delicate bloom becomes the loud, bright horn. The student in front of me hoping for help or direction becomes my own child. The sickened river, the house aflame, the life wrenched into loss—my own, my own, my own.
The potatoes my son and I sliced and tenderly planted have eyes, and like dancers the trees toss their flowers to the breeze. Sometimes, I see a boy I knew when I was just a boy hitch up his baggy pants and laugh out loud and scamper the other way down the street I bike each day to work. It’s okay, I think, to be glad and to ache, to be here and there, to see the one and see the other.
I hope this finds you making metaphors and all kinds of magic.
The Entire Sky Book Tour!
The schedule is shaping up, and I’m thrilled to be sharing The Entire Sky with you soon—very soon! We’ll have a limited-release beer and bluegrass here in McMinnville, conversations with Alexis Bonogofsky, Scott Nadelson, Ellen Waterston, Maxim Loskotuff, and more, and a super special night in eastern Oregon featuring the amazing singer-songwriter Margo Cilker!
Here are some of the initial dates in Montana and Oregon, and from Spokane to Missoula to NYC, there are more to come. You can see the whole slate and keep up with any changes here:
The Entire Sky Publication Day Reading and Celebration, in Conversation with Alexis Bonogofsky July 2, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Billings Public Library, 510 N Broadway, Billings, MT 59101
The Entire Sky Book Tour: Elk River Books July 3, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm, Elk River Books, 122 S 2nd St, Livingston, MT 59047
The Entire Sky Oregon Book Release Reading and Celebration, featuring bluegrass by Bootleg Jam and a special-release beer by the Grain Station July 6, 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm, Grain Station Brew Works, 4130, 755 NE Alpine Ave #200, McMinnville, OR 97128
The Entire Sky Book Tour: Annie Bloom's Books, in Conversation with Scott Nadelson July 9, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm, Annie Bloom's Books, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR 97219
The Entire Sky Book Tour: Paulina Springs Books, in Conversation with Ellen Waterston July 11, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Paulina Springs Books, 252 W Hood Ave, Sisters, OR 97759
The Entire Sky Book Tour: First Draft Reading Series July 18, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm, Pendleton Center for the Arts, 214 North Main Street, Pendleton, OR 97801
The Entire Sky Book Tour: Powell's Books, with Maxim Loskotuff July 24, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm, Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97209
Pre-order The Entire Sky
If you haven’t yet, go ahead and take care of that right now! Order from your favorite bookstore to get your hands on The Entire Sky just as soon as it’s released. Then, when I come through town, I’ll happily sign your copy and lift a glass or two with you!
Good Words
Speaking of The Entire Sky, I’m humbled and super grateful for these wise, lovely words from Sharma Shields and De’Shawn Charles Winslow:
Joe Wilkins's The Entire Sky exposes with strength and poetry the unjust pain of toxic masculinity and the profound damage it wages on children. In these pages a different potential for manhood is turned over and examined, one that allows for gentleness, healing, acceptance, grace. Wilkins gives an exquisite depth to the Montana landscape and to his characters—this is a textured, bloody, and breathtaking book. ―Sharma Shields, award-winning author of The Cassandra and The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac
The Entire Sky is a beautifully written and deeply touching novel about a boy searching for safety and peace, a woman torn between the life she knows well and the new one she and her husband have created, and a man fighting to heal from loss and confronting the passage of time. Each of these characters will stick with me for a long time. I’ll read anything Joe Wilkins writes. ―De’Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
And we just got the first review in from one of the big early review outlets, Kirkus. I’ve been told Kirkus tends toward cranky, so it’s a gift to see these good words!
In desolate, scenic Montana, this novel of lost souls shows them finding themselves in each other . . . The Entire Sky is emotionally powerful and richly descriptive, rapturous in its evocation of the big skies and vast expanse and the lives that have come to seem so small and empty . . . The tale builds with inexorable tension, revealing what has happened, and what could. This is no country for sensitive boys. It’s a novel of flight or fight, of finding family and a home and a reason to live. —Kirkus Reviews
Recommendations
Had the good fortune to read an advanced copy of Old King by Maxim Loskotuff, a novel rich in the wilderness around us. And the wilderness within.
A friend told me the new Gaslight Anthem album is sort of like a long Philip Levine poem. He’s not wrong.
Loved the novel, and the way the Station Eleven mini-series plays with time is pretty amazing too.
And there are so many good Substacks out there. Been reading Leah Sottile, Janisse Ray, and Adam Sowards of late.
Lovely to see your book tour shaping up so nicely!
Thanks for the shout-out, Joe. I just found yours. Not sure why I took so long to get here. Must have gone east to get west.