than our own birth: Because Hke it ornnot, we are attached. We are notnhistoryless hke Adam, breathed out ofnnothing; we’re drawn from the narrownend of a real and compeUing vortex—nhistory—vivid with blood and bone,npassion and fear, as it touches down tonmake us in the here and now. Part ofneverything that was and will be, wenmove up the funnel of history to makenroom for those whose history we willnbe. It was and is all real, all immediatenin its time, and Richard Critchfieldnhas the skill and insight to make itnseem real and immediate.nIn simple, exquisitely appropriatenlanguage, much of it taken from lettersnand newspaper accounts and interviewsnover many years, he introducesnhis mother, Anne, her family, thenWilliamses of Iowa, old Quaker stock,nand his father’s, the less respectablenCritchfields of North Dakota. We witnessnhis mother’s less-than-perfectnwedding day (her father said to her,nhours before the ceremony, “I wishnyou were marrying Forrest [Claxton]ninstead”). Jim Critchfield, the author’snfather, brings his new wife to live innHunter, North Dakota—she wouldnwrite, “I was to hate wind for the restnof my life”—and they began theirnfamily in 1915; the author was the lastnof five children, born in 1931.nAnne held the home together; Jimnstirred things up, made them interesting,ncommitted bigger, heartier sinsn(that eventually killed him in his 40’s),nand was just as heartily sorry. A gentie,nskilled doctor, and a doctor’s son, henspent each day up to his elbows in thenreal life of the community. Evennthough this book begins and ends withnAnne, it feels as if it’s about Jim.nInterviewing old-timers who knewnhis parents, Richard Critchfield laysnimage upon image in language soninviting that it seems like fiction, andnwe come to know intimately not onlynhis parents and family but also thenentire society and era they inhabited.nThis is no vague nostalgic trek back tonthe nonexistent “good old days” ornmere homage to a loved mother, but angifted writer’s careful examination ofnall available resources, to reconstructnthe rhythm and immediacy of thenpast—its sounds and smells, humannpassions and disappointments. Critchfieldnhas resuscitated those days, givennthem breath and pulse, and made theirnrelevance to us, now, evident.n”What was at the heart of thosendays? Things like the taste of breadnright out of the oven when you werengood and hungry . . . The way thenlate, flat sun sent long slants of lightnacross the prairie grass . . . Thosentimes. They’ll never come again. Butnsomewhere . . . Somebody was alwaysngoing to be swinging a golf clubnor a baseball bat or playing a piano orncracking a joke. Or taking a deepnbreath and drowsing off to sleep orndreaming or waking up. Or passingnfrom youth to old age, and hardlvnknowing where all the years went.nTime, in the instant, in the irrecoverablenpassing moment, time continuousnand remembered, going on andnon … I wish I’d known them better.”nDying at the age of 95, nearly halfnher lifetime lived after the death of thenhusband she loved even through hisnlong affair with a young girl (“I nevernwanted to marry her. She was just angirlfriend. You were my wife,” he saidnas he lay dying of alcoholism), AnnenCritchfield asked her youngest son,nborn only a few years before his father’sndeath, to write about their life,nabout North Dakota and Iowa in thosendays. Critchfield thought, “What tonsay? And what if I did as she said? Howncould I write about Father? I asked her,n’How can I write about somebody Incan’t remember at all? I mean, say ofnall the people we know, who is likenhim?'”nAnd his mother answered, “Younare.”nSCORPIONS IN A BOTTLEnJeane Klrkpatritk'” ‘nIrving KristolnSidney HooknWilliam BennettnJoseph SobrannMelvin Lasl