A Lucky American Childhood

Born in 1908, Paul Engle grew up the son of a livery stable keeper. As he writes in his dedication to this loving account, "I had a lucky life. Such a way will never be lived here again. It has gone with the wild buffalo skinners and the Indian fighters, with my mother's hands whose tough calluses tore the sheets as she made my bed, with that marvelous rich reek of harnesses and saddle leather, of horse manure and sweat which I happily breathed each day." The anecdotes are rich and captivating. As a boy Engle sold newspapers to factory workers at Quaker Oats and followed his route out to the city limits where coyotes howled in the woods. He helped his father break and train gaited saddle horses in all weathers and seasons. From family holidays with lively activities, uncles, aunts, and memorable foods to his job in the neighborhood drugstore dispensing castor oil, sodas, tonics, and linaments, Engle's absorbing stories capture the characters and atmosphere of American life just after the turn of the century.

Library Journal

Poet Engle (1908-91) was the founder and longtime director of the famous Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. In this posthumously published memoir of his growing up in Cedar Rapids, he commemorates his boyhood and mid-American small-town life in the early 20th century. In vivid narratives filled with details of remembered sounds, tastes, and smells, he re-creates the defining experiences of his "hard and happy" youth. These include portraits of his harsh, hard-working father and long-suffering mother, lessons he learned toiling in the family stable, and fondly remembered holiday rituals. The memories are bittersweet, evoking nostalgia for a bygone way of life while revealing the shortcomings of a hardscrabble rural life. This work is the 12th volume in the Iowa "Singular Lives" series in North American autobiography and provides new insights into the character and literary techniques of a renowned teacher of writers. Recommended for all collections.Carol A. McAllister, Coll. of William & Mary Lib., Williamsburg, Va.

Paul Engle (1908-1991) won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize for Worn Earth in 1932, became a Rhodes Scholar in 1933, began to teach in the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1937, and directed the workshop from 1943 to 1966. In 1967, with his wife, the Chinese novelist Hauling Nieh Engle, he established the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He published eleven books of poems, a novel, books of reminiscences, children's stories, and an opera libretto.