Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains [Paperback]

Linda M. Hasselstrom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

In Feels Like Far, award-winning author Linda Hasselstrom paints an intimate portrait of family, love, work, nature, and survival against the backdrop of the far-flung South Dakota prairie. Sixteen linked stories tell of the joy of training a first horse, the heartbreak of finding a fatally injured cow, the beauty of cavorting nighthawks, the stubbornness of her father, a rigid old rancher who bucks at old age, the deep, almost spiritual bond she shares with a friend who is diagnosed with AIDS.
“In deliciously direct and unsentimental style” (Kathleen Norris), Hasselstrom maps the landscape of her life, demarcating the same beauties and brutalities that intermingle on the Great Plains she calls home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The brutality and beauty of South Dakota ranch life suffuse this articulate memoir by award-winning western author Hasselstrom (Windbreak). Her difficult relationship with her stepfather, John, who adopted her in 1952 when she was nine, runs through the short pieces collected here. While her mother actively disliked ranching, Hasselstrom found it "like slipping my foot in a perfectly fitting soft boot." An eager pupil, she strove to please John, who taught her to ride, shoot, brand and castrate cattle; one day she even had to kill a sick steer. Strong and silent, John doled out large doses of tough love to his stepdaughter, once telling her that if she got into trouble at school, he would double her punishment. When she became a published writer, he refused to read her work and belittled all activities aside from ranching. Hasselstrom eventually returned to live and write on the ranch with her second husband, who died from cancer. Shortly after this loss, a close female friend revealed to Hasselstrom that she had been diagnosed with AIDS. At the same time, John's physical and mental health began to deteriorate. The author's stoicism in the face of these events began to crack after John ordered her to stop writing and work for him as a paid ranch laborer. Hasselstrom fled to Cheyenne, Wyo., where she found freedom but sorely missed her hardscrabble life. After John's death, Hasselstrom returned to the ranch to look after her mother and to reconnect with the landscape that has shaped her life. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The city mouse/country mouse scenario is played out before the reader's eyes in this collection of essays by award-winning author Hasselstrom (Windbreak). Transported as a girl from Rapid City, SD, to a ranch on the broad Western plain of Dakota Territory when her mother remarried, Hasselstrom became enraptured with her new lifestyle and her adoptive father's willingness to have her help him on the ranch. The essays follow Hasselstrom's growth into adulthood, as she struggles with her love of the hard work, the culture of male leadership, and change in herself and her relationships. Brief stints as a writer in the city allow her to draw contrasts with life on the Great Plains. With finely descriptive language, Hasselstrom brings the reader to the Dakota ranch to visualize its vastness and beauty, all the while reinforcing the personal dedication of the family that lives so closely to the land. Recommended for secondary schools and public and academic libraries.AJoyce Sparrow, Oldsmar Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618124950
• ISBN-13: 978-0618124954
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #967,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Linda M. Hasselstrom is a real South Dakota rancher who has roamed across miles of grassland with no company but her horse, and she's been thrown, kicked, stomped, defecated on and bitten by horses and cows.

"A ranch," she has written, "is not just any patch of rural ground. And the old saying, 'All hat, no cattle' is more than a joke; buying a hat or a few cows won't make anyone a rancher."

Hasselstrom has spent much of her life birthing, doctoring, corralling, branding, ear-marking and otherwise caring for real cows. "Nobody," she insists, "punches cows."

She notes that, "The jacket of a popular author's book says that she lives on a 'forty-acre ranch.' No real rancher could make that statement." Similarly, Hasselstrom says, "only uninformed journalists could write, 'Mr. Jones lives on his 10-acre emu ranch.' The correct way to write that sentence would be, 'Mr. Jones lives outside town with his emus.' Forty acres, ten acres-- those are home sites, not ranches."

Hasselstrom battles such Western myths every day in her writing as well as in her daily life. Three times when she's been thrown from a horse, she received a concussion, but was never able to get to a hospital. She insists the resulting brain damage has made her a true rancher, as well as providing incentive to write about real prairie life.

Hasselstrom says, "I wear the label 'cantankerous' with pride, though I try hard to work with my neighbors rather than against them." She supports the volunteer fire department and the town cemetery as well as local historians working with both old-timers and newcomers to preserve area culture.

Her ranch hosts the Great Plains Native Plant Society's Claude A Barr Memorial Great Plains Garden, the world's only botanic garden dedicated to plants of the arid grasslands of the nation's center. The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory has established a riparian protection area along Battle Creek on her ranch.

Hasselstrom is the full-time resident writer at Windbreak House Writing Retreats, established in 1996 on her ranch. In addition she is visiting faculty for Iowa State University, Ames, and has served as an online mentor for the University of Minnesota's Split Rock writing program. She's also an advisor to Texas Tech University Press.

Hasselstrom's writing has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines; a poetry collection, 'Bitter Creek Junction' won the Wrangler for Best Poetry Book, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK. 'Bison: Monarch of the Plains' was named best environmental and nature book of 1999 by the Independent Publishers Association.

More information on Hasselstrom's life and writing appears on her website www.windbreakhouse.com and in 'American Nature Writers.' Editor John Elder; Charles Scribner's Sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Book, May 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains (Hardcover)

People from the prairies of South Dakota and North Dakota aren't pretentious. Well, some might be, but they tend to stand out in miserable ways. Linda Hasselstrom's writing is like the people of her home: careful, persistent, simple, surprisingly complex, fascinating. Your own family and home may be very different from Hasselstrom's, but through her writing you'll gain a better understanding of your own people and place of origin. Hasselstrom is a master; she shows us how to cherish the tribes we were born into, despite the inevitable losses and disappointments of life. She ranks right up there with Kathleen Norris and Patricia Hampl.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put this book down, February 28, 2004

By 

Ellen Reid Smith (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains (Hardcover)

I unboxed this book, flipped open some pages to preview and before I knew it, I had read 60 pages standing in my kitchen. Legs buckling, I sat and finshed the book in one sitting. The book is compelling because Hasselstrom's storytelling makes you want to read further, but also because her writing mesmerizes the soul. I found myself rereading sentences and hanging on the beauty of her unique prose. "How does she write like this?" I kept asking myself. Her ability to take you within the moment is unsurpassed. You don't need to be a cowgirl to enjoy this book, but if you are, you'll finish it in one sitting--or standing--like I did.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching..., September 26, 2002

By 

Musician "angrylemur" (West Point, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains (Paperback)

Reading this book was a wonderful experience. What a touching story of a family that develops as all families do; realizing we love our family members even more when we accept them loving us the only way they know how. All this against the backdrop of a still unspoiled area of America. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this region, history or living.
Allen