Bone Chalk

Ride shotgun down the back-roads of the Great Plains as Jim Reese becomes Willy the Wildcat at a small Division II school, drives a tractor into an outbuilding his first week on the job, and discovers, sometimes with horror, the truth-after immersing himself in the lives of strangers, friends, family and prisoners. Travel to San Quentin prison in San Francisco Bay where he has full access and isn't afraid to ask the tough questions. Join him in a superstore pharmacy prophylactic aisle. Explore teenage angst and desire with him at a Midwest skating rink. Accompany him as he archives his mother-in-law's peculiarities, often verbatim.

About the Author :
Jim Reese is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Great Plains Writers' Tour at Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota. Reese's poetry and prose have been widely published, and he has performed readings at venues throughout the country, including the Library of Congress and San Quentin Prison. He won the 2018 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, a 2018 Distinguished Achievement Award from Mount Marty College, and a Distinguished Public Service Award in recognition of his exemplary dedication and contributions to the Education Department at Federal Prison Camp Yankton. In 2017 Reese became a Contractual Education Instructor for the South Dakota Department of Corrections Writing for Reentry Program.

Review :
From essay to essay, Reese bemusedly works to sort it out--blessedly, without a hint of Garrison Keillor's labored folksiness. In one comic piece, Reese recalls his ill-fated stint as Willy the Wildcat. . . . alcohol, come-ons, and physical abuse all came with the job. . . . But the narrative's true centerpiece is an essay reconciling his childhood fears growing up in Omaha with his hesitance to teach writing in prisons, something he's done for a dozen years regardless. There, he masterfully weaves his personal history with observations of the prison system both intimately (in the prisoner's writings, their tattoos, the strict regulations) and broadly (the troubled prison system, race and class divides). . . . the variety is the appeal, and Reese is skilled in many registers. . . . An eclectic, appealingly no-nonsense set of appreciations of the heartland. --Kirkus Review ...Reese's central concern is nothing less than the nature of evil and how best to deal with it. His school-boy experience of city-wide panic in Omaha during a wave of killings, and a few years later the murder of a friend, leave no room for naiveté or a Hollywood-style glamorization of crime...Reese also knows that the difference between a man on the street and a man in a cell is most often no more than a bad decision...This effort to change the lives of these men charges Reese's teaching. And it will charge readers of this book... --Cleveland Review of Books The publication of this collection announces Jim Reese as a major writer on the Midwest in all its shades -- lively and bright, somber and muted, violent and dark. Readers of all backgrounds will come away from his writings with a deeper understanding of the Midwest and of the human spirit itself. --Omaha World Herald This author has the ability to morph from "Green Acres" scenarios into situations more suitable to "Breaking Bad" without missing a beat. The reader will be transported from Fordyce, Nebraska to San Quentin prison with the turn of a page... Reese, finds universal truths in his work. Readers will discover that love of family, decency, honesty, and a sense of humor are not limited to any particular region of the country. --Lincoln Journal Star South Dakota writer Jim Reese's new book BONE CHALK is a collection of rural life, written with the thoughtful story-telling skills that we expect from a practiced poet...Much of this book is good humor about the beautiful idiosyncrasies of country living. However, one of the longest and most serious chapters is Reese's reckoning with crime, violence and the prison culture. Few writers have gained such a close-up view of life behind bars in South Dakota. --South Dakota Magazine Bone Chalk is Midwestern Americana at its best. Ringing of truth down to the last thought and gesture, Reese creates a modern portrait of small town life; one Norman Rockwell definitely wouldn't recognize. Built on prose that never fusses or falters, humor, and the endless intrigues that are there in everyday life--if you just know where to look--this is the sort of book you'll pick up and finish in one sitting and be glad you did. --The Nervous Breakdown ...The longest essay in the book, "Never Talk to Strangers--12 Years in Prisons and What Criminals Teach Me," is a compilation of short pieces that center around a single question, "Why?" Included here are the John Joubert killings in Nebraska, as well as the murder of a good friend of Reese's while she was babysitting. Juxtaposed to such memories are Reese's present-day interactions with inmates in his job teaching writing in prisons. The central question is ever present. Why do criminals do what they do? ...Yet Bone Chalk is not all seriousness, and Reese is also quite adept at sharing the more humorous aspects of his life... In this debut memoir, Jim Reese shares a wide variety of personal experiences that few readers would be able to relate to in any other way....And if throwing the door open to new experience is one of the reasons you choose to read, Bone Chalk is definitely your book. --North American Review