Midwest Book Review on Raymond Luczak’s Compassion Michigan

The Literary Fiction Shelf

Raymond Luczak
Modern History Press
5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-9627
9781615995288, $33.95, HC, 200pp
Synopsis: Doesn’t history matter anymore? Could we still have compassion for others who don’t share our views? Encompassing some 130 years in Ironwood’s history, “Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories” by Raymond Luczak (who is a Yooper native, and either the author or the editor of 24 books — including Flannelwood) illuminates characters struggling to adapt to their circumstances starting in the present day, with its subsequent stories rolling back in time to when Ironwood was first founded.
As an author with a genuine flair for originality and the kind of narrative storytelling skill set that keeps the readers total and rapt attention to what they are reading, author Raymond Lucazk has created an impressive body of work with “Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories”
These are deftly crafted and engaging stories about what does it mean to live in a small town (so laden with its glory day reminiscences) against the stark economic realities of today:
  • A Deaf woman, born into a large, hearing family, looks back on her turbulent relationship with her younger, hearing sister.
  • A gas station clerk reflects on Stella Draper, the woman who ran an ice cream parlor only to kill herself on her 33rd birthday.
  • A devout mother has a crisis of faith when her son admits that their priest molested him.
  • A bank teller, married to a soldier convicted of treason during the Korean War, gradually falls for a cafeteria worker.
  • A young transgender man, with a knack for tailoring menswear, escapes his wealthy Detroit background for a chance to live truly as himself in Ironwood.
  • When a handsome single man is attracted to her, a popular schoolteacher enters into a marriage of convenience only to wonder if she’s made the right decision.

Raymond Luczak, author of Compassion, Michigan

Critique: The twin roles of the literary short story are to entertain and to provoke thought. As an author with a genuine flair for originality and the kind of narrative storytelling skill set that keeps the readers total and rapt attention to what they are reading, author Raymond Lucazk has created an impressive body of work with “Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories”. While especially and unreservedly recommended for both community and college/university library Contemporary American Literary Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories” is also readily available in a paperback edition (9781615995271, $21.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $6.95).

Editorial Note: Raymond Luczak is a Yooper native, is the author and editor of 24 books, including Flannelwood.
Honor the Earth
+3

Honor the Earth

978-1-61599625-4
$24.95
Indigenous Response to Environmental Degradation in the Great Lakes, 2nd Ed.
In stock
1
Product Details
UPC: 978-1-61599625-4
Brand: Modern History Press
Binding: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Author: Phil Bellfy (Ed.)
Pages: 302
Publication Date: 01/01/2022

The Great Lakes Basin is under severe ecological threat from fracking, bursting pipelines, sulfide mining, abandonment of government environmental regulation, invasive species, warming and lowering of the lakes, etc. This book presents essays on Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Responsibility, and how Indigenous people, governments, and NGOs are responding to the environmental degradation which threatens the Great Lakes. This volume grew out of a conference that was held on the campus of Michigan State University on Earth Day, 2007.

All of the essays have been updated and revised for this book. Among the presenters were Ward Churchill (author and activist), Joyce Tekahnawiiaks King (Director, Akwesasne Justice Department), Frank Ettawageshik, (Executive Director of the United Tribes of Michigan), Aaron Payment (Chair of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), and Dean Sayers (Chief of the Batchewana First Nation). Winona LaDuke (author, activist, twice Green Party VP candidate) also contributed to this volume.

Adapted from the Introduction by Dr. Phil Bellfy:

"The elements of the relationship that the Great Lakes' ancient peoples had with their environment, developed over the millennia, was based on respect for the natural landscape, pure and simple. The "original people" of this area not only maintained their lives, they thrived within the natural boundaries established by their relationship with the natural world. In today's vocabulary, it may be something as simple as an understanding that if human beings take care of the environment, the environment will take care of them. The entire relationship can be summarized as "harmony and balance, based on respect."
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