Noted author and veteran Kirkwood instructor has debut novel chosen for national literary event
For Larry Baker, an already successful book is going to soon put him literally “on the map.”
The Iowa City based fiction writer and long-time Kirkwood Community College instructor recently learned that his renowned novel The Flamingo Rising has been chosen to represent Iowa in a national literary event this fall. The National Book Festival is set for this September in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
As a part of the event, visitors will get a free USA “literary map” and encouraged to visit each state’s table where they will have it stamped or stickered. Event organizers expect 10,000 maps to be prepared for the September festival, with Baker’s Flamingo Rising noted on each one.
The Iowa Center for the Book is part of the State Library of Iowa in Des Moines and affiliated with the national organization and the Library of Congress. Iowa Center for the Book Coordinator Robin Martin called Baker’s debut novel a natural pick for the annual event. “When I got the call from the Library of Congress to name Iowa’s book title for this year’s festival map, I immediately thought of Larry’s The Flamingo Rising. It remains one of America’s best-loved coming of age novels, both joyous and heartbreaking….It is the perfect choice for young adults and their families, who are the primary audience for this popular map,” Martin said.
Baker describes his selection as an honor and a thrill. “Flamingo is a very special book to me. Not only my first, but also about the bond between adoptive children and their parents.” Baker and his wife Ginger Russell have two children, Ben Russell and Jenny Baker, each of whom was adopted from Korea when they were infants, and who were inspiration for two of the characters in the novel.
The Flamingo Rising is the story of a family that lives inside the screen tower of the world’s largest drive-in theater, along with the theater’s employees and a crazy dog named Frank. The book was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie in 2001.
Baker moved to Iowa City in 1980 and earned a Ph.D. from The University of Iowa in 1986. He served two terms on the city council (“Losing more elections than I won,” he observes), and has taught American history at Kirkwood’s Iowa City campus for 26 years. His latest novel, A Good Man was recently published by Iowa-based Ice Cube Books.