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Back to the land

March 12th, 2009 Lisa - Central

I used to live in a town in Colorado where many hippies moved in the ’70s so they could get ‘back to the land.’  They lived in a variety of yurts, teepees, or log cabins and tried to grow all their food and can and freeze enough to make it through the year.  I wasn’t that hardy.  I just dabbled in making jams from the apricots and cherries that grew in orchards all around the valley.  But I always enjoyed visiting my friends’ farms, and occasionally, farm sitting.

So I was intrigued by the back to the land theme of A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes.  Set in the ’60s, in the small town of Fife, Idaho, this novel begins with the budding love affair of Thomas Deracotte and Helen Carmichael.  They meet while they are attending Yale: he’s studying medicine, she’s an undergrad.  They come from different backgrounds: she’s from an upper class Connecticut family; he was abandoned by his parents early in life, and grew up with his illiterate grandmother.  They fall madly in love, defy her parents and get married.

And head West.  They chose their locale carefully.  A river is important as Thomas needed to fish.  Cheap land is important.  They find a farm in a town where a doctor is needed, and buy it sight unseen.  Kind of a mistake; the buildings are unusable and they have to hire men to build the barn and house.  Plus Helen gets pregnant right away and gives birth to Elise in their tent.

It doesn’t take too long for them to realize they made a big mistake.  Thomas has misgivings about his fit as a doctor.  It’s not the blood that makes him squeamish, but the intimate interactions with people that he can’t handle.  He’s smitten by the river and spends almost all his time fishing.  Helen is bored, lonely and finds she misses her old life, her friends and, surprisingly, her parents. 

With Thomas at the river all the time, Manny, the hired hand, steps in as handyman, builder, farmer, and eventually, love interest for Helen.  But then a tragedy ensues and we jump forward to 1976, when Elise is 16.  She’s been raised almost entirely by Manny, and by her teen years has never really left the farm.   She’s a talented horsewoman and one day meets Lucas at a rodeo.  He draws her into his father’s fundamentalist church - her first real encounter with a loving, supportive, extended family.  Until they see her flaws, and condemn her as a sinner.

Much, much more happens in this book, most of it pretty sad.  But this is one of those stories where the lonely and miserable find each other and cobble together an unusual family that just might work.  That starts out kind of miserable, but ends up kind of hopeful.  What makes this one special, though, is Barnes’ intimacy with the Idaho landscape.  You can almost hear the river whooshing by, smell the fishy, silty musk of the banks.  A captivating story.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction