Lost Without the River: A Memoir

About the Book

Large sections of The Great Plains, particularly those in farming and manufacturing-dependent zones, have seen a dramatic population decrease while, urban areas have increased, showing that the trend of young people moving from their rural hometowns into cities has continued since the author did so in the early 1960s.

Sales of adult nonfiction titles, particularly in the biography/autobiography categories, increased 26% between 2016 and 2017.

Books about smart women and their social/family/health situations saw a 22% increase in sales from 2016 to 2017.

The rural themes of this memoir will be relevant to regional readers.

AUDIENCE:

Women: mothers and daughters, sisters, friends

Small-town expats: People who have left their rural hometowns for cities and long to return

People who deal with caring for a severely disabled sibling or family member

Adults who are transitioning from the role of child to caretaker and coping with how that shift changes the relationship between parent and child

About the Author :
Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic's writing career began as a reporter for the Sioux Falls (South Dakota) Argus Leader, and continued in New York City at G.P. Putnam's Sons. She now lives in New York City where she's working on her second memoir.

Review :
2020 International Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir
2019 Foreword INDIES Finalist in Adult Nonfiction: Grief/Grieving
2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir
2019 Readers' Favorite Awards Finalist in Nonfiction (Memoir)
2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Finalist in Memoir (Historical/Legacy Career)
2019 Foreword Indies Finalist in Adult Non-Fiction: Grief/Grieving

“. . . this volume of reminiscences charts not just the stories of [Scoblic's] youth, but also the ways those things have shaped and weighed on her throughout her adulthood. The author’s prose is lyrical and highly observant . . .”
—Kirkus Reviews

“With its map of the family farm, its photograph of the Whetstone river, and its portrait gallery, Scoblic's memoir is both a microhistory of her tiny corner of South Dakota and an oral-history-toned chronicle of the Hoffbeck family from the 1920s onward . . . . Scoblic's picturesque language . . . keeps sentimentalism at bay . . .”
—The New York Times

“. . . Scoblic has captured something universal here . . . [she] mines the theme of the power of place, specifically the river that traced through their farm. None of the kids remained in South Dakota, and she rightly notes it takes ‘a great deal of emotional courage to return to that spot where we grew up,’ what with how the agricultural economy has foundered. Writing this memoir was no doubt an act of quiet courage, and Scoblic strikes that careful balance between objectivity and love that is essential to preserving such stories.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Her large farming family was always in flux, hardworking and bone weary, yet there is a quiet intimacy conveyed in the lean prose of Barbara Scoblic’s memoir, where simple gestures, like ironing blouses before a sister leaves for college, carry unspoken love and yearning.”
—Elizabeth Garber, author of Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect's Daughter

“There are some writers who can sing the song of even a small and remote place and through some magic transform it into a siren call. Barbara Scoblic is one of those writers!”
—Lewis Frumkes, director of The Writing Center at Hunter College

“Enter Barbara Scoblic's world, where opera reigns in the kitchen on Saturday afternoons, the winter is long, and loss is real. Her writing beautifully teases up the questions of life, love, and how much of a hold our past really has on us.”
—Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life

“Barbara Scoblic’s Lost Without the River is a virtual literary symphony fusing memoir, history, and geography. Her descriptions of South Dakota's farms, rivers, and glacial lakes are as vivid as her portraits of three generations of her family and their relationships. She may have achieved a modern classic.”
—Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of the Bookie's Son