You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life [Paperback]

Gene Logsdon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Gene Logsdon's story embodies both the frustrations and longing so many of us feel as we search for our essential selves and a harmonious life. The measure of his courage -- and contrariness -- is that he has been successful. In You Can Go Home Again, he tells us what motivated him and what success has meant. For Logsdon, to create a home; is not to escape from the world, but to establish a nexus of people, all working together to produce a home-based economy as a bulwark of stability under the larger economy gone crazy with paper money. Home is a local community tied to other local communities. But mostly Logsdon's philosophy must be read between the lines. What he writes about are the sad, funny, and sometimes harrowing adventures of those who live seemingly humdrum lives: understanding creeks; shepherding sheep; coping with blizzards; winning softball tournaments; losing sanity at rock concerts; hiding in haystacks; enjoying Christmas; surviving a buggy ride; overcoming grief, not to mention absentminded professors, dictatorial editors, and fervid priests; and why it might not be a bad idea to go to church in our underwear. What transpires is an inspiring picture of a very American life.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Logsdon--the contrary farmer, as one of his earlier (1994) books' title styles him--offers warmth and insight in his autobiography. He describes the pressures that compelled him to leave the Ohio farm of his childhood for seminary training and the epiphany that propelled him back to secular life to pursue the dream of returning to the lifestyle of his childhood. He discusses the slow death of the agrarian lifestyle at the hands of agribusiness and clearly delineates the economic and political forces destroying small farming in America. But he doesn't just talk. For years he has lived the contrary lifestyle he advocates, using ecologically informed farming techniques and the agricultural wisdom of his background on a sustainable, highly profitable 32-acre "garden farm" in the valley in which he grew up. And he provides not just a fascinating glimpse of a lifestyle that has nearly disappeared but also a blueprint for those who want to lead a similar way of life. The simpler life is within our reach--if we will choose it. Bonnie Johnston --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Here's another voice in the down-to-earth American tradition that runs from Thoreau through Aldo Leopold to Wendell Berry. In this vigorous memoir of his search for the good life, Gene Logsdon tells us why America s agrarian values matter to our future as well as to our past. Living simply, respecting the land, taking pleasure from the work of our hands, supplying many of our own needs, acting as neighbors those values have not been lost, they ve only been displaced, shoved to the margins. And Logsdon shows how we might draw them back to the center of our lives. --Scott Russell Sanders

Gene Logsdon demonstrates once again that a combination of intelligence, scholarship, passion, and fervent patriotism can equal only one characteristic these days, a contrary mind of a high order. --Wes Jackson, The Land Institute

Gene Logsdon has lived by failing according to most people s standards of success, and has made a good life. A good book, too. I like You Can Go Home Again (to name one reason of several) because it comes from experience. It has to do, not with speculation or theory or wishful thinking, but with what is possible. --Wendell Berry

Gene Logsdon demonstrates once again that a combination of intelligence, scholarship, passion, and fervent patriotism can equal only one characteristic these days, a contrary mind of a high order. --Wes Jackson, The Land Institute

Gene Logsdon has lived by failing according to most people s standards of success, and has made a good life. A good book, too. I like You Can Go Home Again (to name one reason of several) because it comes from experience. It has to do, not with speculation or theory or wishful thinking, but with what is possible. --Wendell Berry

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wooster Book Co. (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590982185
• ISBN-13: 978-1590982181
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gene Logsdon farms in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He is one of the clearest and most original voices of rural America. He has published more that a dozen books; his Chelsea Green books include Living at Nature's Pace, The Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening, Good Spirits, and The Contrary Farmer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We're doing it -- Coming home, February 23, 2000

By 

jr33 (Midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life (Farming Biography) (Hardcover)

I *am* going home again. After nearly 20 years in Texas, my family is moving back to Ohio. We feel that call that Gene Logsdon describes so movingly, hilariously. Now, most people, considering the fact that we are doing it by going first and finding jobs later, think we are certifiable. How wonderful to read Gene's work and find encouragement in values that go beyond acquisition and comfort. We're college [over]educated and employable, and jobs are the least of our worries.

Gene's book talks about home, care, a sense of place. When a place where eleven generations have called home calls you back, you have to listen, and that's why we're going. We have a "10-year plan" -- we're lucky enough to be starting out on some acreage on my Dad's farm. And will build from there. My child and my brother's children will be able to cross the pasture to visit each other and their grandparents.

Will we be self-sufficient? Of course not. What does that mean anyway? People are too "self-sufficient" as it is. I want to live someplace where I can depend on people (in all the right senses of the word). We'll grow some vegetables and berries, raise some chickens and have a good time doing it. I dream grandiosely of a cow or maybe three goats (I want to name them Gina, Lola and Brigitta, but my husband is pushing for "Shot Clock I, II, & III" [he spends a lot of time statting basketball games!]) I pour over Lehman's catalogues. It's fun to plan.

I think that's where reviewer "trailboss" below misses Gene's point. I've read everything of Gene's that I can lay my hands on (too much is out of print! ), and one point he repeatedly emphasizes is that this is not about subsistence farming. There's more than "survival" to it or it wouldn't be worth last week's supermarket strawberries.

Gene never claims that you can find Total Peace, Contentment and Happiness and on a homestead. If you don't have some of that before you start, then disappointment is inevitable.

Going home is about place, people, and good dirt. That's the saving grace of it. Not making a "profit" on it, not becoming Organically Pure, or worshipping Gaia. Of course, you can do all those things, but the home and the dirt is the start of it.

And the softball. Former high school first-base ace here! Since we're moving to southern Richland County, Ohio, I hope we get to meet Gene and the boys in a softball tournament somewhere, sometime! In the meantime, Gene, keep pestering your publishers about reprints. :)

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Contrary's Farmer Autobiography, April 1, 2003

By 

"calovius" (Fort Wayne, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life (Paperback)

Gene Logsdon has published his autobiography. Telling the story of his life - from farm boy to the Roman Catholic seminary, studying for the priesthood, dropping out, graduate school, and editor of a farm magazine and finally back to Ohio - he describes how his life comes to a circle. He returned to the good life of his childhood - at least almost. As a witness of the great change in agriculture, he feels a little bit like the last of the dinosaurs, one of the last generation who grew up on a traditional farm before agrobusiness destroyed the culture of rural America. Logdson does not present great programmes, but he has rather chosen to change his life by living an alternative life and work for in his home area for a resurgence of rural America. With his writings he nevertheless exercised a great influence. If you have enjoyed any of Logsdon's books, are interested into rural living and agrarian thought, this book is definitely worthwile reading.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tears & belly-laughs mixed with delight and insight!!, April 18, 1999

By 

Jack Hilty ([e-mail]) (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life (Farming Biography) (Hardcover)

Trust your instincts - - this is the message that keeps returning in this story of one man's life filled with choices that would cause uncertainty for anyone. Gene's self-effacing narrative describes how uncertain life can be when faced with tough choices.

These were very tough choices: Move from small-town USA to Metropolitan sprawl? Withdraw from something as precious as the priesthood? Steal some fresh-baked pies and risk the wrath of nuns?

Somehow it is comforting to know that life can have an "undo" button. Gene illustrates that you can make a wrong choice and still recover. The message: You should always trust your instincts, and you can go home again.

This is a wonderful, if brief, story of someone who bares his life and soul, so that others can see the common thread - - be true to yourself.