Former City News Bureau employee Norbert Blei fled his native Chicago
when the cost of living got too high, taking up permanent residence
in the tourist mecca of Door County, Wisconsin. His published works
draw on his experiences in both locations. "Door Way"
and "Door to Door" are illustrated collections of nonfiction
character sketches of his Door County neighbors, while "The
Ghost of Sandburg's Phizzog and Other Stories" is a collection
of short stories about Chicagoans.
Since publication in 1981, Door Way has gained
recognition as a classic of modern American rural writing. Like
Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Ed Abbey's Desert
Solitaire, it raises issues significant far beyond its immediate
setting. Door Way quickly became a small press bestseller, the first
book of Norbert Blei's "Door County Trilogy". After a
decade of development in the county, it remains both a remembrance
and a warning.
"Norbert Blei is a natural storyteller, and I expect great
things of things. He has a true fell for the land, the people, and
the towns of mid-America. Door Way takes him well on the way."
-Edward Abbey
Winter Book is a mature book with a sense of completion
and acceptance. The season is winter, the dominant theme is the
acceptance of small wonders, including decay and obscurity. Like
Blei himself, Winter Book is alternately nostalgic, angry, and amusing.
It is in some respects a very public book; in others a very personal
collection. The journalistic profiles are Blei's personal experiences
and friends, including public experiences and friends, including
public figures like Chan Harris and Al Johnson, and Door County
natives, poets, musicians, and artists. The fictions - "Dying
Words," "Skating Backwards," "Love Untold,"
"The Hunter," "The Ice Fisherman" - reflect
the Door landscape on a deeper level.
