Goat Song is the story of a year in the life of a couple who abandoned their one-bedroom apartment in New York City to live on seventy-five acres in Vermont and raise Nubian goats. In poetic, reverent detail, Brad Kessler explores our ancient relationship to the land and our gradual alienation from the animals that feed us. His fascinating account traces his journey of choosing the goats and learning how to breed, milk, and care for them. As Kessler begins to live the life of a herder, he encounters the pastoral roots of so many aspects of Western culture—how our diet, our alphabet, our religions, poetry, and economy all grew out of a pastoralist setting, a life lived among hoofed animals.
Brad Kessler's novel Birds in Fall won the 2006 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was named by the Los Angeles Times one of the top ten books of the year. He is the author of another novel, Lick Creek, and his non-fiction has appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, The Nation, Kenyon Review, and Bomb. Kessler is the recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Whiting Writer's Award. He lives with his wife, the photographer Dona Ann McAdams, in Vermont, where they raise a small herd of dairy goats and produce cheese.
