Press

PRESS & MEDIA INTERVIEWS

Sam Maloof: 36 Views of a Master Woodworker

Praise for Sam Maloof: 36 Views of a Master Woodworker

“This richly illustrated book...offers a multifaceted portrait of the man and his work, as viewed through the eyes of people who knew him.”—Scott Russell Sanders, The Washington Post

“I’ve always taken Maloof’s audacity of form as permission to ‘misbehave handsomely.’ This collection confirms my suspicions.”—Nick Offerman, actor, author, owner of Offerman Woodshop

“This warm and personal account of Sam Maloof, one of America’s most beloved craft makers, brings the man and his work alive. By examining Maloof from multiple vantage points, Fred Setterberg unveils the complexity of his apparently straightforward life story. The book will be rewarding not just for those who knew Maloof and his work, but for anyone who places value in a life devoted to skill and artistry.”—Glenn Adamson, Nanette L. Laitman Director, Museum of Arts and Design

“As snapshots of a life devoted to craft, this book should be a touchstone for any would-be craftsman. Here is the secret of what it’s all about: not fly-by-night sensation, but hard work, dedication, and genuine love of material and community, refined over decades. It is a rare treat to read such intimate portraits of one of the great craftsmen of our time.”—Nora Atkinson, Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum

“This engaging portrait of the preeminent woodworker of the twentieth-century studio craft movement, presented through multiple voices and vantage points, poignantly animates a vanishing moment in the cultural history of California (and the nation at large).”--Peter Korn, author, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman

“A very captivating read that has as much to say about the creative process as it does about the woodworker himself. Highly recommended, whether you're a professional or amateur woodworker, or simply revel in the creative life.”—Carl Duguay, Canadian Woodworking

“A tribute to an amazing man [whose] work will never be forgotten, with people coming together to reveal the ‘best of the best’ in the world of woodworking. And a man who had such great passion for his art that he was kind enough to share it with one and all....this memoir is one to be savored.”—Amy Lignor, Feathered Quill Book Reviews

“Wonderful pictures and unique documents are featured in this classy and elegant book. Important testimonials from Mr. Maloof’s friends, colleagues and family are included. Mr. Setterberg brings all of the above with style and poetry in tribute to artist who has himself brought poetry into wood. This is a must have book for anyone who loves beauty and wants to touch it.”--The Culture News

"One man who offers insight on Maloof is his friend and fellow furniture maker, former President Jimmy Carter. 'He was not just the best woodworker that ever lived, he was a person admirable in all his characteristics,' he says. 'He was a philosopher. He was deeply committed to basic moral values. I really have been inspired by Sam.' " --San Francisco Examiner

Sam Maloof Centennial coverage:
"Author Setterberg weaves together the words of Maloof family members, friends and associates to present a personal, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a member of and contributor to his community." Houzz

Lunch Bucket Paradise

Shortlisted for the 2012 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, given by the William Saroyan Foundation and Stanford University Libraries.

Radio Interviews:
Interviewed by KQED Forum's Michael Krasny, Thursday, June 21, 2012, 10:00am, Listen to Forum Podcast

Praise for Lunch Bucket Paradise:
“In electric prose, this book gives us such a sure, detailed sense of what it was to grow up in the late fifties and early sixties – from the music to the name brands to the carbon-copy houses – that we live and breathe the suburban air. Each chapter comes with photographs of the times, helping bridge the gap between fiction and nonfiction, accurately making this the “true-life novel” its cover claims. In the end, we come to understand more of the ordinary lives that build a country. This is the hidden story that needed to be told.”
--Judith Kitchen, author of The House on Eccles Road

“The story begins with abounding hope – white, suburban, 50’s America; new homes, families, neighbors, life; belief in hard work, progress, and good government – and ends with promise in a time of doubt: racial, cultural, generational, and class divides of drugs, sex, rock ‘n roll, and Vietnam. This is a growing up story, a family story, and an American story—part banishment from Eden, part escape. A wonderful, wonderful read.”
--Mark Greenside, author of the memoir I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do)

“A brilliantly clear window onto a world that seems alternately seductive, threatening, and intensely nostalgic (and often all three). I love his storytelling and admire his language. But I have no desire to visit Frog Island with him.”
-- Jeff Greenwald, author of Snake Lake

“This darkly humorous, affectionate, but utterly unsentimental, look at the world the ‘Greatest Generation’ created in the years following the Second World War recreates an exotic, emotionally complicated time—a time as lost to us today as our own youth. Fred Setterberg is a storyteller with incisive talent and a large heart, and he has chosen a topic that required him to employ both.”
—John Raeside, founding editor of the East Bay Express, Oakland California

“Fred Setterberg's poignant Lunch Bucket Paradise, delivered from the perspective of the son of a quietly strong Roman Catholic Calabrese mother and an unrepentant, "technically Protestant" Scandinavian father, is the story of the miracle and the horror of America's post-World War II growth in parallel with the tumult and hilarity of coming of age in the just-blossoming California during a time of fantastically clashing ideals.”
-- Kristen J. Tsetsi, author of Pretty Much True

“Fred Setterberg’s prose is critical yet compassionate. More than an autobiographical novel, Lunch Bucket Paradise is a lyrical probing into the passion and history of the working class California myth, the American dream.” - Lee Hope Betcher, editor, Solstice Literary Magazine

“The prose is deliciously generous, precise, and evocative, and it carries us through a fully earned narrative arc …. The voice is wonderful, too - intimate and honest without being too much - and it pulls the reader deeply into organic, metaphorical territory that gracefully illuminates, among other things, the psychic minefield the American family can be. I love this story!” – Andre Dubus III, author of The House of Sand and Fog and Townie

"Lunch Bucket Paradise reveals the promise, mystery and danger behind the American dream. Setterberg’s writing is gorgeous, forceful and surprising. He tells a riveting story and makes you a participant in the booming California of the 1950’s, with all the struggles, violence and pleasure that life can bring. You’ll find yourself laughing out loud and wiping tears from your eyes. In the end you will bask in the glow of this great read." – Ralph Lewin, President and CEO, California Council for the Humanities

“Lunch Bucket Paradise is a rare find, a book that in so many scenes and shades of story has an eerie prescience for the future of California, even as Fred Setterberg helps us to remember the state's time of innocence and boom and new asphalt and post-war, all laid over the landscape of possibility. It's the narrator's voice, watching his parents - classic American characters! - navigate their lives as Californians, and Americans, in this place. He's funny, wry, and watchful - a great tour guide to his own place." – Susan Straight, author of Take One Candle Light a Room and Highwire Moon

"...a masterfully told story that fuses photographs, fact-based chapter transitions, history and fiction into a narrative that spans the post-World War II era through the Vietnam War. Readers will react with laughter, anger and perhaps tears..." - Trina L. Drotar, Sacramento News & Review

"The reader ... wants to hold onto the book, to savor the words of this powerful, affecting novel." - Anne Fox, Gently Read Literature

Awards & Recognition:
Lunch Bucket Paradise made the shortlist for the 2012 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, given by Stanford University Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation. The awards are intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation.

Events & Author Readings for Lunch Bucket Paradise.

The Roads Taken

Praise for The Roads Taken: Travels Through America's Literary Landscapes
"A smart and unsentimental journey to a few forgotten or overlooked American literary landmarks; winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction. Setterberg's odyssey begins when his road-struck young cousin visits him in San Francisco (where the author lives with Kerouac's sofa) and reawakens in him the sense of adventure that had inspired him to travel 20 years before....Setterberg considers the corruption of journalism and of travel writing in Virginia City, the Nevada boomtown where Mark Twain, the artist of fraudulent journalism, got his start. In New Orleans, Setterberg meditates on Zora Neale Thurston, as well as on racism, music, and dance....There is much art here, and much sense, but mostly genial, articulate, and discerning guidance to some obscure places in America and in the mind." --Kirkus Reviews

"In this literary travelog, Setterberg presents essays on Willa Cather's Nebraska, Larry McMurtry's Texas -- both real and mythical -- Thoreau's Maine woods, Hemingway's Michigan wilderness in "Big Two-Hearted River," and Twain's Virginia City. As he visits each place, Setterberg incorporates his observations with the different authors' words. His chapter on Zora Neale Hurston's New Orleans and black life in the rural South is especially good." --Library Journal

“…rich, alternately humorous and profound prose …thoughtful literary biographies, vivid landscape writings and a gift for metaphor… The book begs for a second reading, friends with whom to discuss it and a vigorous, wandering spirit to match its own.” --The Baltimore Sun

Selected in "10 Favorite Books of Creative Criticism," by J.C. Hallman, Conversational Reading. "Into Some Wild Places with Hemingway," published in the anthology The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature, edited by J.C.Hallman, Tin House Books. "The Usual Story," published in the anthology In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction, edited by Mary Paumier and Judith Kitchen, W.W. Norton & Co. "My Father's Jack London," published in the anthology Travelers' Tales San Francisco, edited by James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger & Sean O'Reilly, Travelers' Tales Inc.

Under the Dragon

Praise for Under the Dragon: California's New Culture
“Ambitious and marvelously vibrant… a captivating and astutely documented take on California’s changing cultural and ethnic intersections. …a fresh lesson in the things that divide and unite us all.”
--Chandra Prasad, editor of Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience

“…documents the decreasing relevance of ‘race’ and the growing importance of community as we continue to mix, mingle, marry, and migrate.” --Kip Fulbeck, Part Asian, 100% Hapa

“The photos and stories capture much of the dynamic of the new millennium, where...diversity has gone into hyperspace in a region where multiculturalism is already considered passé.”
--Andrew Lam, Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora

“Under the Dragon is a joyful celebration of diversity and a compelling case for stretching beyond our own assumptions about our differences." —Janice Mirikitani, San Francisco Poet Laureate

Museum Event:
"Trading Traditions: California's New Cultures" multi-media exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California, January 19 - April 6, 2008.

Radio Interviews:
Fred and Lonny interviewed by Denny Smithson on KPFA’s Cover to Cover.
Fred is interviewed by Julia Taylor on WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
Fred, Lonny, and sound designer Jim LeBrecht discuss the Trading Traditions exhibition on Your Call, KALW.
Fred and Lonny interviewed by Mike Cuthbert on Prime Time Radio, with accompanying slide show.