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Read the Iowa Source book review
Hear Patrick Irelan’s reading at Prairie Lights
See photos from Prairie Lights and other readings:
A Firefly In The Night:
A Son Of The Middle West
by Patrick Irelan
ISBN 1-888160-20-9 (9781888160208), trade paper, $16.95, 151 pages (includes photographs)
A Firefly In The Night is a candid and humorous story of a life repeatedly interrupted by emergencies. Irelan tells his story the only way he can, with more humor than the events recorded might seem to require. As a child he learned a set of values from his parents and other elders and he has lived his life according to those values, but with occasional revisions that have allowed him to survive the absurdities of modern times.
Patrick Irelan knows the Middle West as well as anyone possibly could. As both a seasoned teacher and writer, he acquired first-hand knowledge of what it means to be Midwestern. Mr. Irelan has lived through all the region’s recent changes: he grew up on a small family farm, attended a one-room school, worked with crops and livestock, and had parents who worked for the once-great railroad and telegraph systems. He worked briefly in what other family members endured for decades—the many depressing changes in factory life. In addition, he studied and worked in the academic setting of the University of Iowa and participated in the many movements of the 1960’s. A Firefly in the Night is a sequel to his popular family memoir, Central Standard: A Time, A Place, A Family (Univ. of Iowa Press, 2002).
purchase at bookstores or at amazon.com
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A Firefly in the Night sheds a big light on Midwestern life with all its eccentricities, its predictability and surprise. Like no other writer I know, Irelan perfectly captures the landscape of place and the character of the people of his native home. This warm, reflective memoir is a must read for anyone interested in the search for self.
—Mary Swander, author, The Desert Pilgrim: En Route to Mysticism and Miracles
Through a series of neatly turned, short chapters, Irelan evokes a Midwestern life. No dysfunction here. A Firefly in the Night gives the reader energy rather than draining it with tedious confession or self-seriousness. Yet beneath the humor and the playful, deceptively simple prose, lies plenty of pain as life’s joys --friendship, love, fatherhood--are succeeded by job crises, anxiety, and divorce. Ultimately the writer, and the reader, not only come through but triumph.
—Edmund de Chasca, Senior Editor, Boulevard
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