Dyer’s Latest Memoir “Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood” Released

Joyce Dyer, director of the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature and John S. Kenyon Professor of English at Hiram College, has recently had her latest memoir released by the University of Akron Press. “Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood” (2010) is a prequel to “Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town,” telling the story of the first five years of Dyer’s life growing up in a part of town once marked by ravines, caves, glaciers and stone quarries on every corner. It is a book about a physical location in Akron, Ohio, that has largely disappeared–vanished from the Akron map, as well as from the author’s memory.

The book is an investigative memoir and grapples with the hard question of how to discover a place and a time that seem impossible to retrieve. Can the past be discovered? Are memories only someone else’s recollections? Can we draw out the shadows deep within the crevices of our brains? Accompanied by her uncle, the self-proclaimed “Mayor of Goosetown,” the odd couple travels to unearth the lost years. Together they search for signs and symbols to jar recollection. Dyer weaves her story from the traces that remain: memories of relatives, public records (criminal, as well as civil), letters and diaries. Facing a present with streets and buildings that have changed with urban progress, can Dyer ever find her real home? Can anyone?

Dyer is the author of three books, “The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings,” “In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer’s Journey” and “Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town,” and the editor of “Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers.” She has published essays in magazines such as “North American Review,” “cream city review” and “High Plains Literary Review.” Dyer has won numerous awards for her writing, including the 1998 Appalachian Book of the Year Award and the 2009 David B. Saunders Award in Creative Nonfiction. The book, which contains 28 photographs, is available at the Hiram College Bookstore, as well as on Amazon or through BookMasters.