'These are vulgar times'
Art Cullen on guns, church, clean water, immigration, hogs and politics in America
Art Cullen lives in a small town that most people don’t know and will never visit.
He understands the pulse of America.
Cullen has a unique ability to explain how we got here, this journalist from Storm Lake, Iowa, where 30 languages are spoken and a Tyson Foods meat packing plant is a major employer.
It comes as no surprise to me that his new book has inspired a tour that’s attracting hundreds of people at each stop, where overflow crowds choose to sit on the floor for the opportunity to hear him speak.
His collection of observations on our increasingly weird world is just 183 pages long, released in late September by indie publisher Ice Cube Press. Cullen’s lifetime of interviews as a reporter, and a rare sense of place, provide an insightful and provocative perspective.
Before being convinced to do the book, he said he was certain that no one cared much about what he had to say or how he said it.
His carefully selected words from a collection of columns explain what’s at stake for us all, in small town America and throughout our great nation.
Cullen has the ability to see the world with extreme clarity, and translate complicated issues simply. He will make you angry. He will say things you want to applaud. He might make you cry.
At 68, Cullen is focused on fighting cancer. He is not alone. Iowa has among the highest cancer rates in the nation.
The title of his recent book — “Dear Marty, We Crapped in our Nest: Notes from the Edge of the World” — was initially criticized by one of his trusted advisers as “vulgar.”
Cullen responded, “These are vulgar times.”
He writes about church ladies who spend their days quilting, the hog industry, growing and selling corn, immigrant laborers, big business, an elite press corps that too frequently fails to grasp the realities of rural Americans — and the response of these voters to politics and politicians now.
If Cullen practiced medicine, he would be a doctor performing bloodless surgery.
Everything is presented with detail and precision. At times, I felt like I was listening to a college professor — the kind that has waiting lists to get into his classes — because of how he’s able to connect pieces of life with such ease and grace.
While reading this book, I noticed an exchange on social media among the Silicon Valley elite about foreign ownership and influence in the Heartland. I wanted to pack up a bunch of Cullen’s books and mail them out.
I’m not alone. Readers from all over the U.S., Canada and Europe have ordered the book, sending this little $20 paperback into a second printing within 14 days. Cullen has said the experience is humbling.
He spoke to another packed house in Decorah, Iowa, on Monday, Oct. 20. Weekdays or weekends, they’re coming to hear Cullen. Political moderates are frustrated.
This is a man who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for an editorial series he wrote for his twice-weekly newspaper with a circulation of 3,000 in rural Iowa. The Storm Lake Times Pilot, founded and staffed by his family for the past 35 years, spotlighted the issue of polluted drinking water, fertilizer runoff, the role of big ag and politicians at every level.
“It’s not the end of the world, but you could see it from here,” Cullen writes as the first sentence of the first chapter of this book.
He frames global and national issues from an Iowa perspective. He writes as someone who has listened carefully to people who think no one is listening at all.
While some folks claim immigrants are stealing jobs, Cullen questions whether very many people want the job of cutting the bunghole out of a hog — a real job on the local packinghouse roster.
His local school is 90% children of color, mostly Latino since 1990. Corn is grown for ethanol production and hog feed, not people. Blue collar workers used to be unionized and able to afford boats. Mom-and-pop stores have been replaced by Walmart, Dollar General and Amazon.
He invites you into his world with intimate descriptions of Iowa life shaped by the people of Buena Vista, Clay, Pocahontas, Sac, Ida and Cherokee counties.
“I know men who will crawl on their bellies through frozen farm fields stalking a Canada goose about to get blasted. And plenty of others less ambitious who just lie there waiting for them to fly over …” he wrote.
“The idea of banning assault rifles or limiting their ammo capacity is unthinkable in Northwest Iowa.”
These issues are not partisan. These people are not memes. This is America.
Reading Cullen’s book delivers a crash course on climate, agriculture, chemistry, corporate power, meat supplies and politics. I learned about bat guano, bombs, fertilizer, Native Americans, the Nobel Prize and why water depth is growing in Lake Michigan. I didn’t fully appreciate the connection between hamburgers and the deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest until now.
Meanwhile, Mexicans cut meat for the Chinese in Denison, Iowa, Cullen writes. “The theater is crude but it does the job in two acts: Divide and conquer.”
He points out, “Amid the propaganda that you must fear the ‘other,’ it bears repeating as much as the lies: The ‘other’ is us.”
Cullen says things in a way that need to be said at a time we need to hear them.
Listen here to Charity Nebbe interviewing Art Cullen on Iowa Public Radio.
If you want to buy the book, support the small, independent publisher by ordering directly from Ice Cube Press in Iowa here.
More:
My neighbor flies a Canadian flag
Putting miles on a 2013 Lincoln saved his life
I’m honored to be part of The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative — which offers a fresh mix of political analysis, features and news from a Heartland perspective.
Art consistently says the hard stuff out loud.
Thanks for this great review. I am always heartened by the magnificent writers we have in Iowa, including you, Phoebe, and Art. Such a treasure the Iowa Writers Collaborative is for all of us to see the grand variety of great Iowa writers. So appropriate for this once fine state of Iowa as a legacy to the Iowa Writers Workshop. One of the many good things going on that will help Iowans understand their government isn’t serving them well. Throw out the thugs, and get back to the reasonableness of good solid Iowa.