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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
North by northwest . . ., September 7, 2006
This terrific collection of personal essays is part memoir, part social history, and part appreciation for the lunar topography of the author's home state, North Dakota, where reminders of its geological past are everywhere in the flat expanse of inland seafloor, the rolling terrain of glacial morrain, and the rocks that surface each year in the fields and need to be cleared by hand. Marquart, descendant of German-speaking immigrants from Russia, tells of the generations of her family, who have farmed the same homestead since the late 19th century. Born the last of five siblings, she grows up driving tractors and pickups and doing chores from an early age, while yearning, always yearning, for escape - life being ever elsewhere.
With a career as a singer for a heavy metal band behind her and currently teaching creative writing at Iowa State, she looks back over the years, aware that her identity is still linked to her roots "in the middle of nowhere" and to a family that cannot comprehend any of the life she has lived since she left home. Most poignant are her memories of her father, whose funeral begins the book, while an episode on an out-of-state trip with both elderly parents ("To Kill a Deer") is a groaningly hilarious tribute to the impossibility of communicating across generations. Other subjects covered are the special trials of growing up female in a farming community, including the imagined trauma of being among its first settlers from the Old Country, as well as the tenuous self-esteem of North Dakotans whose most well-known celebrity is Lawrence Welk.
Marquart is a fine, entertaining, and moving writer, an eloquent voice for the diminishing number of those who grew up on small family farms on the Great Plains. Also recommended: Judy Blunt, "Breaking Clean"; Kathleen Norris, "Dakota"; Bobbie Ann Mason, "Clear Springs"; and Kent Meyers, "Light in the Crossing."
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An accurate, enjoyable depiction of life in the middle of nowhere, August 22, 2006
Here's your chance to find out about life in a rural town in the most rural state of the lower 48 from farm girl turned rebel turned academic turned author Debra Marquat. A descendant of German-Russian farmers, she grew up as your typical, albeit unusual for that area, rebellious, farm girl. Through excerpts from other works and a series of ordinary but interesting anecdotes, she enlightens the reader with facts about her native state, her ancestors, farmers, farm life and family - from the lengths folks will go to in order to keep land in the family; to the monotony of farm chores; to "the horizontal life," to an unfortunate encounter with a deer and the predictable aftermath; to a father's failing heart, death, and funeral; to a hundred other details that will ring true to anyone who has spent time in a rural area in that part of the country. Although one may question the her choice to include information about her sex life in a book which will undoubtedly be read by conservative farmer-types, and her decision not rush home to see her dying father, she freely admits to being a rebel and never professes to always do the right thing. The references to and inclusion of text from various works of fiction and non-fiction are sometimes welcome, but more often detract from the pleasant flow of her writing, although probably highlight her "academic" side. A comparison of her great grandfather to "land-hungry father Larry Cook" - from A Thousand Acres, when readers of it will remember his big secret, sticks in my mind as particularly distracting.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dazzling Memoir, November 9, 2006
This is the most engaging book I've read in several years. Written with all the power that could be expected of an Iowa Writers Program Professor, it tells it's own story while exposing the desperate truths of all who've violently wrenched themselves out of home ground to find a life that fit. Blunt, funny, ironic and wry, its bravely openhearted look at a younger self made me look clearly at my own 20-year-old self, that I've disowned for over 35 years, and invite her back in.
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