The New Yorker, May 18, 2009, published a poem by Ohio author Ian Frazier claiming he’s turning 40 “in just a couple of days.” Of course, Frazier, a humorist, is spoofing the reality of 58. He was born in 1951 and graduated from Harvard in 1973. “What does it feel like, old bones?”
Frazier wrote an article about his Midwestern roots for The New Yorker in their January 10, 2005, issue – “Out of Ohio: How the Midwest made me.” He lived in Hudson, Ohio, from when he was six years old until he was eighteen.
The article captures his nostalgia for those years and the reasons for leaving his hometown. Here’s an excerpt:
“Why did Hudson enchant me? Why was life, there and then, so sweet? I think a million reasons happened to come together, none of which we grasped at the time. We had plenty of leisure. We had cars to drive. Gasoline was still so cheap it was practically free. Our parents, to whom the cars we drove belonged, had leisure, too. In their case, they were inclined to take long vacations, and indulge us kids. Fathers (and a few mothers) had steady jobs, pensions, health insurance. The economic difficulties that would later take a lot of those away and that I still don’t understand had not yet visibly begun. Vietnam was winding down. The draft had just ended, removing a load from all our minds. Et cetera.”
The New Yorker’s contributor bio for Frazier says his new book, Travels in Siberia, will be published next year.
The Longest Chapter 