News and review by Editor Larry Freeze of Just Folks: Earthy Tales of the Prairie Heartland by Jerry Engler in Kansas Country Living magazine.
By Larry Freeze
Meandering through Jerry Engler's book is like taking a stroll down memory lane. You may not know the characters that inhabit this fun collection of short stories, but they stir up memories of people we've all bumped into throughout the years.
Just Folks: Earthy Tales of the Prairie Heartland is the perfect title for more than five dozen stories of everyday happenings that can and probably do occur in rural communities everywhere.
Rural living and writing have been a part of Engler for what seems like forever. A former editor of Kansas Country Living, he has written for several Kansas newsapers. He and his wife, Belinda, live near Marion, where she operates a horse farm. They are members of Flint Hills Electric Cooperative, Inc., Council Grove.
"Family members and friends always thought it was my destiny to write fiction," Engler said," and I thought that way myself. But it took mea a lot of years to do it.
"The newspaper I was working for at Hillsboro was looking for something to make the paper different from others. I volunteered to write a fiction story weekly. That was vry good for me. I feel like it not only got me to doing what I wanted to do all along, but it gave me the discipline for doing it."
Like a magician who won't divulge the methods behind his tricks, Engler won't directly say his stories are truth or fiction.
"I tell people that the stories are highly embellished truth," he said. "The real truth is that some of them are nearly all true and some of them are complete concoctions. The test is whether people can tell the difference."
Readers may detect a similarity to Engler's stories and the tales created by Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion fame. It's easy to become entwined with the trials and travails of Engler's Kansas communities and Keillor's Lake Wobegon.
In fact, Engler was having a book signing at last year's Kansas State Fair the day Keillor was appearing at the grandstand.
"When Keillor's crowd hit the building, sales of my book about doubled immediately," Engler recalled. "Apparently, we attract the same kind of people."
Those people are snapping up Engler's book in short order. The book is about to enter its second printing and is also being translated into Braille.
For more information, visit www.jerryengler.com. The book is available at most major and independent bookstores.
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