Book Review: Art Cullen’s new book continues tossing barbs

Art Cullen is in his comfort zone when pointing out what he sees as Iowa’s vulgarities. It’s not as if he likes them. He doesn’t and says so in increments of up to 18 newspaper column inches, the length of his weekly Storm Lake Times-Pilot opinion piece.

Vulgar farming and land management practices from corporations that pollute water and harm animals in confinement pens. Vulgar acts by large corporations whose business practices keep the working class in its lower-echelon place. Vulgar discrimination against Latinos who do important work in Iowa towns like Storm Lake and enhance local culture. Vulgar acts by people calling themselves Christians who turn the other cheek to those in need. And, certainly vulgar lying from politicians, especially, in Cullen’s world, modern-day Republicans.

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You can read about all of this in Cullen’s new book, “Dear Marty, We Crapped In Our Nest: Notes from the Edge of the World.” The book is being released Sept. 28 by North Liberty-based Ice Cube Press, which is taking advance orders for it. The preordered books will come signed.

Ruth Harkin, an accomplished Iowa politician and public servant in her own right but also the wife of former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was not keen on the title, Cullen enjoyed saying in an interview. “She thought it was vulgar. And I said, ‘We're living in vulgar times.’”

“We Crapped” is written in the folksy and entertaining style that won Cullen the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

The book is a collection of thoughts that started with one chapter about Iowa agriculture but eventually became packaged as a series of letters to Cullen’s high school friend Marty Case, a retired Minneapolis grant writer. It has examples of Cullen’s exacting observations, philosophy and sarcasm, all written in a breezy, entertaining way that gives him status among his most avid followers as Iowa’s resident sage. The description is different — akin to pain in the side, or thereabouts — among those he dumps on when assessing blame. Cullen’s first book, “Storm Lake,” was published in 2018 by Viking Books of New York, New York, and you may forgive yourself if you think “Dear Marty, We Crapped in our Nest” reads like part two of that first book.

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“That's really kind of what it is,” Cullen said in the interview, laughing as he spoke with that raspy laugh a heavy smoker like him has. “That's all I know. I don't pretend to know anything about even Kansas.” Note to reader: he wrote about Colby, Kansas, and its need for water, right after he wrote about Native Americans trying to preserve their water rights.

The man cares about his state and does his homework. “In summer, a green blanket of plant life covers the gently rolling hills of Iowa,” he observes about the Iowa landscape and the corn and other crops planted there. “From the air, the trillions of plants in flyover land might look like a picture of nature’s bounty. Looks can be deceiving.”

He laments politics that make people mistrust science. “In Joe Biden’s first campaign speech after winning the nomination, he declared that he would listen to scientists. We’ve sunk pretty low when more belief in observed facts becomes a political philosophy.”

Some of his sharpest sarcasm is aimed at evangelicals and their politics. “Nobody knows if Jesus registered to vote. They lost track of him from age 12 to 30. He might have been a Democrat. He certainly was a radical. The Beatitudes could be read as a social platform.”

Driving the barbs is reverence Cullen has for Iowa amid what he calls propaganda, especially about Latino immigrants. “You forget your story in the flood of lies about who we are,” he writes before running down qualities about Storm Lake that make it great: immigrants from around the world who work hard at the local Tyson plant and volunteer for public service, Mexican murals, international food, children participating in school functions, strong voter support to build new schools.

Cullen clearly doesn’t write to entertain those at the other end of his barbs. “I just wanted to bitch about what's going on in Iowa,” he said in an interview when asked why he wrote the book. That, and Ice Cube Press owner Steve Semken, of North Liberty, had been pestering Cullen for one.

“Iowa is plowing headlong into the past,” Cullen warns in his book. He is not confident that will change any time soon. But, at least he got that off his chest.