I had high hopes for this book based on the inside cover synopsis. Joe Blair decides at a young age that he will travel for his life. He and his wife elope and ride away from MA on their motorcycle to be - bohemians, basically. They make it to Iowa before they run out of money. 15 years later, they're still there, Joe is repairing AC and they have 4 kids, one of whom is severly autistic, when the Cedar River floods Iowa City. Joe is beginning an affair and is having trouble connecting with his wife.

I expected with this lead up that there would be some real "A-HA" moments where the flooding river is a metaphor for his life, but didn't get that unfortunately. There really seems to me that there was nothing in this book except some self-pitying whining and laments about his life. And the flood itself only takes up a few paragraphs. Plus, he writes a lot of conversations as they happen, which is mostly one person interrupting the other person, or Joe reduced to saying a lot of "umm, well not exactly right now" sort of things, so we as the reader never get the point of the conversation. Sorry Joe - thumbs down from me. ( )

Joe Blair, a pipefitter and air conditioning repairman, takes an unflinching look at his life in this beautifully-written memoir about the joys and challenges of marriage and parenting four children, one of whom is severely autistic, in a small Iowa town. Joe's early dreams of adventure turn sour as his life contracts into supporting his family and coming to terms with a son who will never be able to live alone. His marriage is failing, and his dreams disappear into the reality of supporting a family. A natural disaster turns his town upside down, which gives Joe an unprecedented opportunity to take a good, hard look at what he values. Joe is the best version of everyman in this captivating memoir.

I am not a fan of memoirs because I think they are too often a vehicle for a me-more with self-aggrandizing memories. I was drawn to this book because I went to Grinnell College, which is also in small Iowa town not far from Joe's home. When I learned that he is a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop, I knew I had to read his memoir. This is a book I will long remember and highly recommend. ( )

I haven't felt so irritated by a book since Gone Girl. Blair kept my interest by making me dislike him so. His life with a severely autistic son is undoubtedly difficult but I loathe his actions when the going got tough.

This memoir is brutally honest and sometimes, just TMI. I wonder if his wife actually read it before publication. ( )

The author bills this book as an examination of how experiencing the Iowa flooding helped him to re-examine his failing marriage and his priorities. However, while this may be a catchy tag to hang the story on, it is not accurate. Instead this is more properly placed in the genre of middle age, coming to terms with reality auto-biography, with a bit of raising a special needs child auto-biography thrown in.

Blair's story is about how he and his wife met and spent the early part of their marriage traveling across country on a motorcycle from Massachusetts until they get to Iowa and decide to plant themselves there and raise a family. In the present, he finds himself in a large house that needs constant maintenance, working as a air-condition/heating/refrigeration repair guy to support his wife and their children, including a son who is severely autistic and needs a great deal of care. He responds to this by having an affair with a pretty writer he meets. In the end he and his wife work through their problems and take another leap into a more adventurous future.

Although the story was pretty mundane, what made me enjoy this book was the beauty of some of the writing. The manner in which the author writes about the beauty of the country as he sees it from his motorcycle or the chaos and calm he sees struggling in his son's face were really moving and elevated a familiar narrative. ( )

Hoo, boy! Where to even begin trying to describe BY THE IOWA SEA? I believe that Joe Blair's memoir will be a rather controversial book. But here's my two cents' worth. This is a very powerful book. I had trouble putting it down, which is good. But I felt like a voyeur, and I'm not quite sure yet if that's good or bad.

BY THE IOWA SEA is perhaps the most utterly human and nakedly candid look at a marriage as any I have ever read. I started to call it a "troubled" marriage, but then I decided I didn't want to pigeonhole it in any way. Sure Joe and Deb Blair have got their troubles after eighteen or twenty years of marriage, but doesn't everyone? Doesn't that first flame of passion fade for most married folks after that many years - hell, even sooner for many? And the Blair marriage is made even more difficult and problematic by their having to deal with a severely autistic son. And Joe Blair's descriptions of what that entails hold nothing back. Yeah, they have some outside help, with various therapies, special schools and respite workers, but the truth is - and both Joe and Deb are all too aware of this - having an autistic child is kind of a life sentence.

Joe Blair is a pipefitter. He's the HVAC guy that comes to fix your furnace or boiler or air conditioning system. The 'plumber's crack' is never specifically mentioned, but judging from some of the contortions needed for the jobs described, it must show up now and then. But, fortunately for us, Blair is also one hell of a fine writer. There's nothing fancy or artsy-fartsy in his writing. It's plain, direct language, used to its full effect.

Joe misses his wife, Deb - the go-for-it girl she was when he met her back at UMass Lowell. But it's four kids later now, saddled with debts and the monotony and repetitions that make up real life, so of course Deb has changed. So Joe looks around, notices how other women are still attractive, and attracted to him. He even tries to get Deb into the game. He has a rich fantasy life - or he tries to have. Deb is mostly tired all the time. The inarticulate, exhausted, sometimes angry conversations are recreated here with near perfect pitch -

"... what? says Deb. You want to sleep with other women? That's ...

That's not - I begin.

You want to sleep with other women, she says again.

No, I say. Absolutely not. But ... what if I did?

I knew it! she shouts, almost victoriously. Why do you -

No! No! You don't understand! It's not about sex. It's not. It's about ... love.

You want to leave me.

No. That's not what I'm saying. I just want us both to ... choose again. To ... be loved. And to love. You know? I'm trying - ..."

And on and on and round and round until you can nearly feel the pain yourself as you read this stuff; it's nearly palpable. And I just felt for this guy, for this pipefitter, who was so filled up with the malaise of middle-aged disappointment and wondering, "Is this it then? Is this how it's gonna be for the rest of my life?!"

I'm pretty sure that men and women are gonna choose sides when they read this book - Joe or Deb. Because this is perhaps one of the most intimate and real looks into the male mind that's ever been written. Guys will get it. Women will probably not. Most of them will probably think, "Why, you BAStard!" And here, if I try to defend him, I begin to quickly lapse into the same sort of sad inarticulateness that afflicts poor Joe. Maybe it's a guy thing, that need to keep on being, being ... well, a sexual being, ya know?

I guess the thing that worked me up the most about this book is that it is NOT FICTION. It's a memoir, so I gotta believe Joe is doing his confused and inarticulate best to just tell his story. And somehow in the process he sets the story - his and Deb's - against the backdrop of the horrific floods of 2008 which utterly changed and ruined so many lives throughout the midwest. The connections come through. Natural forces, human desires and dreams, and how they all collide, and how things change.

Honestly, I feel like kind of a jerk trying to describe this work. But I'm not alone. Joe Blair himself described it this way to a woman he later had an affair with -

"A book, I said. About love. Well, not really about love. It's about this guy who has lost hope, and then finds it. And it's autobiographical, only not. And it's about faith. And a marriage that has ... well ... to be honest, I don't know what it's about. It's hard to say."

And that sort of sums it up. You know? You just have to read it. And I guarantee it'll suck you in, whether you're a man or a woman. I ended up liking the guy. And I suspect, even though it's very much a 'guy' story, that a lot of women will end up liking him too.

Here's a little postscript. Joe, if you haven't already read it, you should read Fred Haefele's memoir, REBUILDING THE INDIAN - that motorcycle stuff you talked about, ya know? And you and Deb both should try to read NEXT STOP, Glen Finland's memoir about her adult autistic son. I mean if you have time, which you probably don't ... even so. Sheesh! Joe's got me writing like he does now.

Once more. This is one very powerful book. Read it! ( )