University of Iowa Press, March 2012

Praise for Trespasses:

“Utterly hip, while at the same time a voice from another era, Trespasses is about ‘growing up in a poor farming town in the Great Plains,’ an examination of the term ‘white trash’ through interviews, research, and memory, and an evocation of a place many of us will never see. Yet, at its heart, it is a lyric evocation of self. Plainspoken, tattooed, and brilliant, Lacy Johnson pushes the boundaries of what memoir—and, perhaps more importantly, what any of us—can be.”—Nick Flynn

“I was riveted by Trespasses—written with the haunting interiority of poetry and the compelling drive of prose. Much like being caught in a novel by Faulkner or Morrison, I found myself thinking about large important issues without initially understanding how Lacy Johnson’s language carried me there.”—Claudia Rankine

“The middle of nowhere for some is her home in rural Missouri for Lacy Johnson, and it’s a place she loves but where she cannot stay. That trouble of her heart is beautifully mapped in the quiet, beguiling Trespasses. Writing in a multiplicity of voices that surprise but also ring true, Johnson digs into the notions of ‘home’ with a clear-eyed reverence for family and the emblems of Middle America: silo and sparrow nest, shotgun and sewing table.”—Ryan Van Meter, author, If You Knew Then What I Know Now

“A haircut. A breakfast. A ride to school. An adolescent transgression. In Trespasses, Lacy M. Johnson etches indelibly the texture of a life that is lovely, horrifying, and hallowed. Her writing is a marvel: a microsectioning of the simplest memory, a peeling and lifting of each layer to reveal new truths that the reader keeps recognizing. Focusing on being defined by class, Johnson simultaneously transcends it and presents us a primer on how to see as humans.”—Melissa J. Delbridge, author, Family Bible

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