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A Long Shout: Selected Writings of Clarence Jonk,is an excellent introduction to this quirky and virtually unknown writer who deserves a larger place in American letters. Jonk is a superb storyteller. Part Huck Finn and part Little House on the Prairie, A Long Shout includes some of his finest work. Remember Pa? includes vignettes of growing up on the Minnesota prairie in the early 1900s as seen through the eyes of a young boy. River Journey and its sequel, River Journey II , are full of stories about life on the Mississippi during the Great Depression. Jonk wrote poetry for more than 50 years and A Long Shout includes representative selections. Black Lace created a stir when it was published in the 1950s for it s straightforward writing about lust and love. Tales of the Pirate Mice is a strange and delightful collection of children s poems illustrated with tableaux of dead mice dressed up in pirate costumes. The biographical note by Lee Pederson offers a good gloss on some of the personal aspects of Jonk s tales both the stories and the poetry. A Long Shout will surprise and delight readers interested in an America that has now faded into memory and myth. --Doug Wilhide
Clarence Jonk is not a household name, even for the most devoted fans of Midwest-based American writing. But Jonk, who grew up on a farm near Raymond, MN in the early 1900s, is an individual worth knowing and a writer worth reading. A Long Shout: Selected Writings of Clarence Jonk, a new collection of his work, reveals why. In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Jonk and a friend tried to sail a rudderless houseboat, the Betsy-Nell, down the Mississippi from St. Paul. They put into the river in October and made it only to LaCrosse, WI before being iced in for the winter. But the story Jonk wrote about his adventure, River Journey, has become a kind of cult classic of life on the River. Published in 1964 and again in 2004, it is Jonk s main claim to fame, but not his only one. A Long Shout offers selections of Jonk s work, most of them previously unpublished. There are excerpts from River Journey and the sequel, River Journey II, which include odd characters and extraordinary stories of life on the Mississippi during the Depression. Remember, Pa? is an anthology of tales about growing up on a farm in western Minnesota as seen through the eyes of a young boy. Crescent Moon is a sequence of love letters Jonk wrote to his wife, Virginia Dunn, before, during and after they got married. Tales of the Pirate Mice is a strange experiment in children s literature that includes pictures of dead mice dressed in costumes to illustrate verse narratives. Black Lace is a titillating collection of poems that scandalized residents of Stillwater, MN. Jonk is one of the great, unrecognized storytellers in American letters, a kind of Huck Finn meets Little House on the Prairie, with a bit of Robert Frost thrown in. A Long Shout -- at long last -- introduces him to modern readers. A Long Shout: Selected Writings of Clarence Jonk Edited by Doug Wihide Biographical note by Lee Pederson ISBN 978-0-9777915-1-4 Paperback, 5.5X8.5 280 pages, including 16 pages of photographs Trolley Car Press 3019 West 43rd Street Minneapolis, MN 55410 612-926-3939 wilhide@skypoint.com