Overview

In November 2020, B.J. Hollars answered a call from his father-in-law while teaching. “When will you be home?” Steve asked. “I have news.”  So began the Hollars family’s year of plenty--a cancer diagnosis on top of the ongoing COVID pandemic, then feelings of falling short as parents, partners, and people. While Hollars traces his family’s daily devastations alongside his father-in-law’s decline, he recounts the small mercies along the way: birthdays, campfires, fishing trips, kayaking, and fireflies. As he, his wife, Meredith, and their three young children grapple with how best to say goodbye to the person they love, they are forced to reassess their own lives. How can we make the most of our time, they wonder, when time feels so short? Written in vignettes and accompanied by photographs and family interviews, Year of Plenty provides a poignant and unflinching account of how death separates us not only from the people we love but from places and memories too. Hollars explores how death’s all-consuming weight has the potential to fracture--rather than strengthen--even those relationships we think we know the best. Ultimately, he cracks wide personal moments from his own life and allows the world to peer in.

Full Product Details

Author:   B. J. Hollars
Publisher:   University of Wisconsin Press
Imprint:   University of Wisconsin Press
Weight:   0.340kg
ISBN:  

9780299347444

ISBN 10:   0299347443
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   14 May 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

I. Before November 4, 2020 November 24, 2020 December 17, 2020 December 24, 2020 December 25, 2020 December 25, 2020 (continued) Interview #1: Winter 2022 January 27, 2021 February 13, 2021 Bear Country: January–February 2015 February 20, 2021 March 19–22, 2021 March 23, 2021 April 16, 2021 April 18, 2021 Punch Line: March 2014 May 1, 2021 May 18, 2021 Interview #2: Winter 2022 May 29, 2021 May 29, 2021 (continued) Good Dog: March 2020 May 30, 2021 June 1, 2021 June 2, 2021 June 5, 2021 June 5, 2021 (continued) June 5, 2021 (continued) Interview #3: Winter 2022 June 7, 2021 June 8, 2021 II. During June 12, 2021 Interview #4: Winter 2022 June 12, 2021 (continued) Safely Ashore: June 2004 June 16, 2021 June 16, 2021 (continued) June 17, 2021 June 17, 2021 (continued) June 18, 2021 Interview #5: Winter 2022 June 18, 2021 (continued) June 19, 2021 June 19, 2021 (continued) June 19, 2021 (continued) In the Adobe Hotel in Santa Fe: January 3, 2017 June 19, 2021 (continued) June 20, 2021 Final Cancer Treatment Preceded by a Surprise: June 21, 2021 Steve Ball June 23, 2021 Interview #6: Winter 2022 June 24, 2021 June 25, 2021 June 26, 2021 June 28, 2021 June 28, 2021 (continued) Interview #7: Winter 2022 June 28, 2021 (continued) June 28, 2021 (continued) June 28, 2021 (continued) Interview #8: Winter 2022 June 29, 2021 June 29, 2021 (continued) June 29, 2021 (continued) III. After August 8, 2021 August 10, 2021 The Wild Horses of Tybee Island: February 1, 2018 August 10, 2021 (continued) August 16, 2021 August 20, 2021 August 21, 2021 August 21, 2021 (continued) September 10, 2021 September 26, 2021 Interview #9: Winter 2022 September 28, 2021 November 24, 2021 November 25, 2021 December 26, 2021 December 28, 2021 What Death Is: 2023 December 29, 2021 March 13, 2022 August 2022 Interview #10: Winter 2022 Obituary Acknowledgments

Reviews

"""When B.J. Hollars is in college, working as a counselor at a camp for child cancer survivors, a ten-year-old boy explains that the feeling of dying is 'like being alive, only. . . you notice things.' In Year of Plenty, Hollars helps show us how it's possible to stay present, how to notice, even--or especially--when we're in the thick of it. I fell in love with this whole beautiful family--and then I took some of that cracked-open-heart tenderness back to my own dear ones.""--Jill Christman, author of If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays"

Author Information

B.J. Hollars is the author or editor of more than a dozen books. The founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild, he is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions