MY PARENTS MET in ’72, married in ’73, and bought a house outside the little Mississippi River town of Fort Madison, Iowa. Two acres of land along a dirt road that became a two-lane highway when I was a toddler, our property within an imperceptible curve that drunk drivers seemed to blow off like dust, into our gully or the neighbour’s front yard. Fort Madison was an old settlement: an outpost, a fort, a farming town and, progressively, an industry town built on paint and shampoo and pesticides, canned meats, fancy pens and the state maximum-security prison.

Growing up, I was certain of snow in the winter; mosquitoes in the summer; tomatoes from the garden and too many zucchinis, fried up with breadcrumbs; church on Sunday; turkey at Thanksgiving; leaves red and gold and brown and falling, piling up against Dad’s rake. I was certain I was too big for this town. I’d leave this place, and hardly look back.