Customer Reviews

Pie Town Woman: The Hard Life and Good Times of a New Mexico Homesteader

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This was the most interesting book I've read in years. As a photographer with a minor interest in history of the Western US, I found this book to be an intriguing mix. Initially I was uncertain that a book written by a photographer (from a photographer's point of view) could really go beyond simple observations, but Joan Myers does a great job in doing just that. Though the title of the book and much of the subject matter refers to a woman who grew up in the 1930s & 1940s - it is a history of a way of life gone from most of the country, it is about Russell Lee, a photographer in the 1940s, it is about the modern West, and it is about Joan Myers herself. The great thing about this book is that with great photographs from the early 1900s to 1940s mixed with the author's own wonderful modern photographs (which give the feeling that not much has changed in the Pie Town area since the 1940s) mixed with a text which reads much like a journal- the book becomes a history lesson even for people who aren't fans of reading history. It should also appeal to fans of early 20th C. photography because it gives insight to photographs well beyond the typical "this is what was happening then" caption.

This is a fascinating account of a vanished place and attitudes that explores the use of photography to tell a story and create a point of view. This is both a honest unvarnished look at a hard life and an exploration of the manner in which pictures make their own reality. The structure of the book is excellent and the narrow focus on an isolated part of New Mexico expands to shed light on the entire country,

THE WORDS WRITTEN IN THIS BOOK ARE THE WORDS OF AN INSANE OLD WOMAN. THIS IS WHAT I CALL A POOR ME BOOK THAT IN NO WAY TELLS THE TRUTH. THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN FOR ATTENTION AND NOTHING ELSE.
THE BOOK IS A COMICAL RELIEF TO THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY KNOW DORIS. I WOULD SUGGEST THAT YOU ONLY BUY THIS BOOK FOR A BIT OF HUMOR AND NOTHING ELSE.