What I'm Going to Do, I Think

by Larry Woiwode

Isolated with his wife in the wilds of northern Michigan, a young man struggles to resolve the conflicts between his inner being and his outward resonsibilities

Genres: Fiction

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Larry Woiwode was designated Poet Laureate of North Dakota by the Legislative Assembly in 1995. He served as Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973-74; and from 1983-88 was a tenured professor at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and director of its Creative Writing Program.

Larry Woiwode’s fiction has appeared in Antaeus, Antioch Review, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Harpers, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Partisan Review, and many other publications; his poetry has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, Poetry North, Tar River Poetry, Transatlantic Review, Works in Progress, and other publications and venues, including broadsides and anthologies.

His novels and his memoirs are widely acclaimed and his writings have been translated into a dozen languages and earned him international recognition: he is the recipient of the William Faulkner Foundation Award, 1969; has been a Guggenheim Fellow, 1971-72; a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, 1975; chosen by the American Association of Publishers for a novel to present to the White House Library, 1976; is recipient of an Award in Literature from the National Institute and American Academy of Arts & Letters, 1980; of the John Dos Passos Prize (for a diverse body of work), 1991; and of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, 2001. He has also received North Dakota’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Roughrider Award, conferred by Governor Sinner, in 1992; and in 2011 received the Emeritus Award from the High Plains Awards Committee, for “A Body of Work as Vast as the West.” His recent publications include Words Made Fresh, and The Invention of Lefse, published in 2011 by Crossway Books. His new novel Blackburn Bay is nearly ready to be viewed by agents and publishers, and in 2010 he completed a new book of short stories

Reviews

[Temperance · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m too unintelligent to truly understand this book

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been too long, but I recall being quite impressed and would like to try this one again. A 60s book for those of us who were then asking questions.

copied and pasted review from "KIRKUS REVIEW

The casual, tentative, attractive title is deceptive--so are many of the intimations and premonitions in this first novel which subsists on contrasts. It is both lyrical and literal, graphic and suggestive, overt and sequestered and altogether successful in translating an emotional relationship between two young people. Chris is 23, a graduate student; Ellen is 21, and after a year's interim they marry and spend a month at her grandfather's lodge in Michigan. She is two months pregnant and her background (the accident in which her parents were killed after which her grandparents destroyed every remnant of their lives except a ring; her grandparents, and their repressive, judgmental disapproval) does much to explain her withdrawal, her ""sad sashay and silence."" He is trying to reconcile ""where I'm going, and am"" with the reality of marriage, a child, an unknown future and his own precious equilibrium (jealousy, recrimination, rejection). He buys a gun, the ""arbiter"" of death, and much of the edgy momentum of the novel resides in the unexplained tragedy of the past and the ominous possibilities ahead which life resolves differently. Not innocuous inevitable YA but worth considering--Mr. Woiwode manages to finger experience with a remarkably true touch.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

"He turned away from her and was taken by surprise when the meadow silvered even more and began sparkling as he watched, sending out tines and shafts of splintered light. He hadn't imagined that the events of the past few weeks had upset him that much. He held himself still so Ellen wouldn't know he'd been overtaken by emotion, and tried to purge himself as he had in childhood, but there was no relief now in tears. Springing from a source he was unable to locate or comprehend, they only made him feel more broken."

8.5 / 10

A confident, intense, and truly surprising book that makes for a pretty remarkable debut. The (mostly nonexistent) descriptions you'll read of What I'm Going to Do, I Think discuss it as a straightforward coming of age story, which is true, but there's a lot more going on here that I think deserves credit and discussion.

Woiwode's utter control over time and place in the novel is fascinating. It's almost a shame that this is limited to a handful of sequences mostly related to panicked recollections and drunkenness, but it's maybe all the most impressive for its restraint. In the middle of relatively straightforward internal monologue, Woiwode will bring us to entirely different settings and conversations, and at times flow back and forth between the present and the past. It's sometimes disorienting, but the fact that these always feel related to the events that brought the transition on help to ground and orient us. It's not as if playing with time is unique to Woiwode, but it's the ease and naturalistic flow of the transitions that really impresses me here. These elements are truly so effective, and I'm hoping to see more of this in some of his later writing.

Another thing that struck me is how confident a choice Chris seems as a protagonist. It's worth acknowledging that times and social norms have changed, but even with that in mind, Chris is, frankly, a huge asshole. He's intensely moody, often burying his emotions before letting his anger out on the person closest to him. He's hypocritical, demeaning, insecure, and seems like an all-around unpleasant person to live with. But while all of that is true, he's also 23, and that's what I found myself focusing on the most during my reading. I'd like to think I wasn't quite this bad at the same age, but Woiwode does a really wonderful job of capturing how overwhelming it can feel to be deeply defensive of your own burgeoning adulthood, while lacking almost entirely the emotional maturity to actually handle the adult situations thrust upon you. Each occasion of shaking my head at some wildly immature outburst from Chris would be countered by a glimpse at his unprepared and overwhelmed emotional state that he clearly can't quite bring himself to express with any real honesty. It's an excellent portrayal of a flawed person, and really feels like the work of a more experienced novelist.

There's a certain appeal to buying an out of print book with 7 Goodreads reviews from a thrift store in the middle of nowhere because the title and author's last name seem unusual and loving it. It's that feeling of ownership over something that has become under read. But mostly I'm just sad that this is so inaccessible for most people. Some books are bound to be forgotten to time, but I do hope that What I'm Going to Do, I Think finds an enthusiastic publisher one day who will bring it back to life and find it its deserving audience.

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Larry Woiwode was the Poet Laureate of neighboring North Dakota and I live across the river in Moorhead, MN. I heard him read some in person and read more of his non-fiction some years back. This was his first novel. It tells the story of a young couple's first month of marriage as they live in her grandparents' cottage in Northern Michigan, along the shores of Lake Michigan. Both Chris and Elle bring enough demons of their own into the marriage as they get used to the place and each other. The novel reads well, but the plot is somewhat hard to follow.

[Rich Engel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insecure anxious yet domineering young man marries pregnant girlfriend whose parents died in an unexplained tragedy, and they spend time at her grandparents' cabin in rural Michigan where these college kids don't fit in and she has lots of memories. Lots of interior monologue, well written, a 1960s portrait, pretty good for the author's first book, kinda overlong or too little plot for me.

[Marcos Alonso · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tiene sus momentitos, pero apesta a antiguo y a cerrado

[Pgregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always wanted to read this book, based on the title alone, since it came out in the last 1960s, since it reflected my indecision in my early 20s. The book is a good reflection of those days as well, dissatisfaction and confusion and disaffection for society, not unlike The Graduate. It reads pretty well today. I have taken to enjoying novels written in the 1960s and experiencing the (now strange seeming) ways we thought and lived.

[Will Dunfey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woiwode's first novel: an interesting coming-of-age story about a young man, insecure in many ways, and his wife. Conclusion is hurried and weak,but the portrait of a moody and immature husband and wife is spot on.

[Geoffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fine beginning book by a fine writer. Captured much of what I felt in my early 20s.

[Tish Cabrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this decades ago and it still haunts me. Lyrical and poetic.