Sometimes you just can’t reach the author of her new book for a quote. What’s the next best thing then? The answering machine. Iowa State professor Mary Swander’s message goes like this: “Hello, this is the Fairview School. Neither Mary nor Mack can come to the phone right now so please leave a message after the beep.” You read correctly, Swander lives in an old, one-room schoolhouse on the edge of a large Amish community in Kalona.

Come to Big Table Books this Friday to find out more about this remarkable woman. Swander has recently completed her new book Out of this World and will read from it at the Ames bookstore.

Fellow author and associate English professor Steve Pett has called Swander a “lively and dynamic reader who brings additional life to her work when she reads.” Swander’s book originally stems from a severe reaction that “left her allergic to most pollutants and food found in the ‘regular’ world,” a press release stated.

In 1983 Swander received an improperly mixed shot from a West Virginia doctor which prompted a physical reaction so violent that “one bite of rice made me black out, [and] one leaf of lettuce made my mouth break out in huge raw sores.”

Out of This World “is the memoir of this astonishing life transformation revealing how one woman discovered her strength and self-sufficiency in a community connected to the land, and to the cycle of the seasons,” the release said.

Pett contends that the novel is “remarkably complex, yet the construction looks effortless. It’s really a very artful piece.”

Swander has also published three volumes of poetry which are “accessible, readable, and [have] warmth and soul,” according to author and associate English professor Fern Kupfer. “Her writing is bound in nature and the body, in living and dying.” Swander has been compared to Terry Tempest Williams, Loren Eiseley and Sue Hubble. Others have compared this new book to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

Both Pett and Kupfer agree that a Swander reading is worth a listen. Kupfer comments that she is “never dull” but on the contrary, “she is a very theatrical presenter.” Swander also plays in a theater group called Wild Women, which keeps her stage presence sharp and focused.

Swander kicks off her 12-city reading tour in Ames at 7:30 p.m. Friday. It is free and open to the public. Other stops for Swander include readings in Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco among other cities. For information call Big Table at 232-8986.