Iowa Trouble | Tyler W Granger

A memoir of political violence across Iowa mixed with a variety of horror stories from punk sub-culture to Iowa gangsters to the politics of the Iowa Caucus.

Also in the interests of disclosure, Tyler does talk about working with several Democratic political campaigns and during several election cycles in this memoir, including the 2018 election year. My wife was a Democratic candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives that year, although her campaign was not mentioned in this book. All right, possible conflicts of interest disclosed, on to the book. Check out: Iowa Trouble

If there was a reader who might be someone this memoir might be geared for, I might be at least one of the readers in question. It is an autobiography of a young millennial man growing up in turn of the 20th century. I am solidly (although I’m not a fan of generational labels) Generation X, but I, like Granger, did grow up in suburban Iowa throughout my youth and beyond.

The tagline for the book on Goodreads is, “A memoir of political violence across Iowa including horror stories from punk-subculture to Iowa gangsters to the politics of the Iowa Caucus.” So, we have punk rock (one of many musical interests of mine), the punk subculture, Iowa gangsters (meaning the underculture of Iowa life) and the politics of the Iowa Caucus (a slight hobby of mine, as I’ll explain later). After I read that tagline, I was convinced I’d want to give it a read.

The reader begins the first chapter seeing Granger grow up in a loving home in northern Iowa and yet contending with bullies and dubious classmates at a now-defunct high school, and it never quite slows down from there. It might have been useful to have at least a quick author’s note laying out his purpose in sharing his story with us. The closest Granger comes to a thesis statement or main idea is this brief commentary in the second part of the first paragraph of the book:

My memoir is a remembrance of victims of Iowa ungodly geopolitics and deadly drug war. These are the weight of memories I have been carrying and wanted to get off my chest.

For more information regarding Tyler Granger Iowa visit here: https://www.amazon.com/Iowa-Trouble-Tyler-W-Granger/dp/B0BCSFB3F2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=18W3PGYTJCCCS&keywords=iowa+trouble+tyler+granger&qid=1702233221&sprefix=%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1