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Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond

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Readers do not have to live in the south to appreciate the sincerity of the voice of Amy Blackmarr in her first collection of essays entitled "Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond." Blackmarr takes her experiences while living in her Grandfather's tar-papered, unheated fishing cabin located in the woods of south Georgia and shows the reader how nature, including human nature, can change one's life forever.

Though Blackmarr's pond is not Walden, she does find answers to some of her questions about life and death (her grandmother's and her dog's) during her five-year stay. She realizes that only true friends are willing to take a long drive into the country to visit in a cabin that has no hot water or heat. Often alone, she finds solace as well as wisdom in the company of Gene, her neighbor who farms the land, and Queenie and Max, her dogs. "Going to Ground" is both humorous and thought-provoking. But perhaps the largest compliment for Blackmarr is her ability to relate to her reader, to make the reader say, "I understand; I've been there, too."

I was very pleased with this book - Amy Blackmarr's style really impressed me. Each chapter is a short story of it's own, yet they are all about her life & experiences with the same place. I enjoyed every chapter, every story - There was even one which I loved so much, found it so profound, that I immediately reread it & then later read it outloud to my husband.
Great work, Amy! Thank you! I can't wait to read your other works.

Kudos to Amy Blackmarr for a gently ironic, sometimes funny, touching and always honest look at the questions about life, death, and living that we all grapple with every day. She turns the ordinary experiences of her life at her grandfather's Georgia cabin into delightful, searching stories that I find new surprises and new meaning in every time I read them. Full of sensual details and images that take me right to where she is, standing on the back steps of a tarpaper shack, sipping coffee, looking out over a pond, or striking through the swamps watching for snakes and alligators! A great, fast read.

Ever since Thoreau, it seems that writers have been regularly going to the woods to inhabit shacks, and then write on their experiences there. Amy Blackmarr has produced a fine book of this sort, bittersweet, somewhat melancholy, and full of interesting observations on life and nature written as a series of chapter-essays. Strangely enough, in an interview in Atlanta she claims she was not particularly familar with Thoreau until after she moved to the cabin, though her reasoning for doing it seem to come straight from that source. Like a Zen master living in the temple ruins, she likewise inhabits her grandfathers shack, accepting it pretty well as it is, and resists the temptation to go into relating feats of construction and carpentry, a refreshing change for books of this nature. In the end the shack is sold, and she moves on, apparently now to a treehouse, and if this book is any example, I'm sure her exploits there,should she care to write about them , should be equally well received.

The essays that comprise this collection put me in mind of river stones, each compact and perfectly polished, each dense with the weight of insight and experience. The essays are generally brief, yet rich with detail; comparisons to Thoreau or John Muir are more than appropriate. I generally prefer reading a book to listening to one, but this is an exception. Amy Blackmarr's voice is southern and evocative in that soft, slow sense that puts me in mind of warm nights on a front porch. You will quickly feel you are beside a small pond in the South Georgia pines.

I had the privilege of hearing an advance copy of the new complete Audio Book of Amy Blackmarr's classic, GOING TO GROUND:Simple Life on a Georgia Pond. Blackmarr's pleasing southern voice, combined with Chase Anderson's Indian flute and fiddle introductions, makes for wonderful listening that takes you right to the heart of the Georgia pond and simple cabin, which is the setting for the book. Humor is one of the book's strongest points, and it comes through funnier than ever in the author's excellent telling of the characters and the ubiquitous mice!

Young South Georgia woman gets off the fast train, returns to family's shack by the pond, then delivers us a way to enjoy her experiences and reflections. The sparce prose of Amy Blackmarr lets you sit back and relax awhile. You'll also enjoy the sequel, House of Steps, where she moves to a peculiar little house out in Kansas. Her outlook on life is quite refreshing. Both books are short, too, so they're great for summer trips to the beach, or weekends out in the backyard.

You know she's a great writer when she spins her words so profoundly and beautifully that it makes you cry within seconds....then listen with all senses vigilent...then laugh out loud....then cry again in a final release of everything you had left in your emotional arsenal of defenses. Amy Blackmarr's work in this audio is nothing short of a spiritual awakening...without the obligatory regligious overtones. Wherever you come from, no matter what you're looking for, listen to this, and you will be healed in some way.

A book about leaving the city, leaving your business behind and moving to Georgia. I wonder why it was that I became so enamored of this book and it's author. Becuase, I'm about to do the same thing. This is the kind of book that I could probably read again and again. It suanders. It meanders. It is relaxed. It's scope is wide, it's execution is simple and effortless. I found myself yearning to be the author's guest at her little cabin by the pond. I wanted to pet her dogs, drink a beer with her neighbors. I wanted to walk in her woods. Fantastic job at gentle memoir.

Amy Blackmarr's memoir "Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond" is a captivating story about the five years she lived in her grandfather's remote 1920s fishing shack beside a small Georgia pond. She reflects on her solitary life without hot water, her two dogs, the beauty of nature, her family, neighbors, friends and the generosity of strangers with insight, warmth and humor.
She skillfully mixes poignant vignettes from her past with poetic reflections on the present. She says, "Life, I have discovered, is not a continuous narrative, so much as a grab bag of scenes played and then replayed as the moment I occupy recalls them and brings them into focus."
She expresses ambivalence about her solitary life. She says, "Solitude is an easy companion. It doesn't require much from me except the ability to be comfortable alone. Friends need more. They need my attention, my energy, and my time. On the whole I prefer solitude. Even so I wouldn't trade the times I spent at the pond with my friends for twice the solitary hours."
As Blackmarr's fear of predators recedes she learns to have a deeper more loving and respectful relationship with the natural world. Over time she finds snakes will leave when left alone or gently nudged from the path with a stick instead of shooting them. She declares a truce with the mice after unsuccessfully trying to trap them. In my experience a "Have a Heart" mouse trap is highly effective.
Blackmarr even tells her neighbor, "Animals aren't going to attack unless they feel threatened," when he suggest she carry a gun when she walks in the woods.
She was, sadly, unwilling to interfere with her dogs killing armadillos and other animals. She came to accept the process as natural. I respectfully disagree. Domestic dogs can be trained not to kill.
Ultimately, like Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim and Tinker Creek" "Going to Ground" is the story of one woman's return to her roots, living close to the soil, learning to see and the discovery of herself.