Jim Heynen

As a tongue-in-cheek chronicler of Upper Midwest farm life, it’s impossible to avoid comparing Jim Heynen to that popular juggernaut over at Minnesota Public Radio. And indeed, fans of Garrison Keillor will find much to enjoy in the work of this Iowa-born storyteller, who chronicles rural life and boyhood in a voice wistful, spare, and wry. The Boys’ House , which came out in paperback from Minnesota Historical Society Press in July, collects new stories and tales from two out-of-print collections about a loose, rambunctious band of farm kids known simply as “the boys,” whose exploits Tom Sawyer would recognize with a grin. They spend their lives playing in corn cribs and on threshers that might suffocate or mangle them in an instant. They innocently plot mayhem against stray cats and ducks, and learn unpretentious wisdom from sparrows and their not-quite-grownup Uncle Jack. All the while, they slowly awaken to the strange, contradictory adult world looming around the corner. Heynen’s simple, plainspoken prose is rich in observed human nature and a bittersweet awareness of the certainty of change. These short vignettes—all clocking in at around three pages—capture life under the shadow of grain silos as a series of snapshots rather than a single continuous narrative. Heynen’s spare, Zen-like lack of specificity is worlds apart from Keillor’s highly detailed Lake Wobegon. His small town is never named and exists in no particular state or decade, and his farm folk have the anonymous resonance of characters in a fable. They could live anywhere, and so live everywhere in those small towns and states of mind that the Wal-Marts and the malls haven’t yet plowed under. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com, www.jimheynen.com