Eric Dieterle. Where the Wind Dreams of Staying: Searching for Purpose and Place in the West. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2016. 160 pp. Paperback $18.95. eBook $11.99.

Eric Dieterle’s memoir Where the Wind Dreams of Staying depicts the author’s emotional growth through and within a landscape, rooted in the author’s ever-present yearning for the peace and omniscience seemingly afforded by the natural environment. Dieterle’s varied writing background spans the gamut ranging from newspaper editing and to formal essays in environmental literature journals to blogs. Dieterle received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Washington State University, and a second master’s in English from Iowa State University. Where the Winds Dreams of Staying is his first monograph.

Dotted with flashbacks and internalized side trips into the realm of environmental ethos, Dieterle chronologically traverses his development through changing landscapes and locales. The titular concept of the wind, something always in motion and virtually impossible to contain, dreaming of a place where it could stay, metaphorically renders the essence of Dieterle’s life. Beginning with his earliest memories of locations and (re)locations with his family at the age of four, the author establishes a sense of identity rooted in place that is constantly consumed by the tumultuousness and disconnection of an insatiable restlessness. As the memoir progresses, depictions of place serve as the currency of Dieterle’s internal dialogue, reflecting his passions, challenges, and relationships, including struggles with bouts of depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and several failed marriages. Beyond points of reference, portrayals of the shifting ecosystems and environs of Washington, Idaho, Utah, Iowa, Nevada, and Arizona serve as foils within the narrative, reflecting Dieterle’s internal landscape.

Expressed in eloquent language depicting the essences of place and of motion, Dieterle’s narrative does not mimic the works of other nature writers but carves a path through the wilderness of the self by way of landscape. Dieterle draws the reader into the experience of yearning for an identity and oneness with place and being. Statements such as, “Time and distance tatter chronology, leaving patchwork impressions of place and the person I tried to be in each of them” (2), draw the reader into the experience of yearning for an identity and oneness with place and being. Further exemplifying Dieterle’s skillful portrayal of his struggle with the self, the author’s internal journey is mirrored by the wind: “Occasionally, as if taking its own breath for a brief moment, the wind would cease and the world stopped and waited, unsure of how to proceed in the calm” (15). These are but a few examples of the poignant and elegant prose that renders Where the Wind Dreams of Staying a wonderful venture into the relationship between place and self.

Bernadette Russo

Texas Tech University