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In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country
Poet Kim Barnes grew up in northern Idaho, in the isolated camps where her father worked as a logger and her mother made a modest but comfortable home for her husband and two children. Their lives were short on material wealth, but long on the riches of family and friendship, and the great sheltering power of the wilderness. But in the mid-1960's, as automation and a declining economy drove more and more loggers out of the wilderness and into despair, Kim's father dug in and determined to stay. It was then the family turned fervently toward Pentecostalism. It was then things changed.
In the Wilderness is the poet's own account of a journey toward adulthood against an interior landscape every bit as awesome, as beautiful, and as fraught with hidden peril as the great forest itself. It is a story of how both faith and geography can shape the heart and soul, and of the uncharted territory we all must enter to face our demons. Above all, it is the clear-eyed and moving account of a young woman's coming of terms with her family, her homeland, her spirituality, and herself.
In presenting Kim Barnes the 1995 PENJerard Fund Award for a work-in-progress by an emerging female writer, the panel of judges wrote that " In the Wilderness is far more than a personal memoir," adding that it stands "almost as a cautionary example of the power of good prose to distinguish whatever it touches." Indeed, In the Wilderness is an extraordinary work, courageous, candid, and exquisitely written.
In the Wilderness is the poet's own account of a journey toward adulthood against an interior landscape every bit as awesome, as beautiful, and as fraught with hidden peril as the great forest itself. It is a story of how both faith and geography can shape the heart and soul, and of the uncharted territory we all must enter to face our demons. Above all, it is the clear-eyed and moving account of a young woman's coming of terms with her family, her homeland, her spirituality, and herself.
In presenting Kim Barnes the 1995 PENJerard Fund Award for a work-in-progress by an emerging female writer, the panel of judges wrote that " In the Wilderness is far more than a personal memoir," adding that it stands "almost as a cautionary example of the power of good prose to distinguish whatever it touches." Indeed, In the Wilderness is an extraordinary work, courageous, candid, and exquisitely written.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
37 people are currently reading
821 people want to read
About the author
Kim Barnes
45 books125 followersI was born in Lewiston, Idaho, in 1958, and one week later, I returned with my mother to our small line-shack on Orofino Creek, where my father worked as a gyppo logger. The majority of my childhood was spent with my younger brother, Greg, in the isolated settlements and cedar camps along the North Fork of Idaho’s Clearwater River. I was the first member of my family to attend college. I hold a BA in English from Lewis-Clark State College, an MA in English from Washington State University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, my first memoir, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, received a PEN/Jerard Fund Award, and was awarded a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. My second memoir, Hungry for the World, was a Borders Books New Voices Selection. I am the author of three novels: Finding Caruso; A Country Called Home, winner of the 2009 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction and named a Best Book of 2008 by The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and The Oregonian (Northwest); and In the Kingdom of Men, a story set in 1960s Saudi Arabia, listed among the Best Books of 2012 by San Francisco Chronicle and The Seattle Times.
I have co-edited two anthologies: Circle of Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Western Women Writers (with Mary Clearman Blew), and Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by Twenty-Five Women Over Forty (with Claire Davis). My essays, poems, and stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including The New York Times, WSJ online, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Magazine, MORE Magazine, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. I am a former Idaho-Writer-in-Residence and teach in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Idaho. I have three grown children, one dog, one cat, and live with my singular husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow Mountain.
I have co-edited two anthologies: Circle of Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Western Women Writers (with Mary Clearman Blew), and Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by Twenty-Five Women Over Forty (with Claire Davis). My essays, poems, and stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including The New York Times, WSJ online, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Magazine, MORE Magazine, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. I am a former Idaho-Writer-in-Residence and teach in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Idaho. I have three grown children, one dog, one cat, and live with my singular husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow Mountain.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
July 17, 2018
This was a very moving read for me. I felt the struggle between daughter and father that is framed by a fundamentalist Christian perspective, where the father is the priest of the family and to question his power is to question God. I understood the conflict of finding and forming an identity in a space that actively works to subject and suppress your being—where your essence is labeled as sinful and even demonic.
Barnes does an excellent job of tracing the many people that make up who we are, reconciling the various personas we have carried throughout our past, and tracing the subjective nature of memory as we work to make sense of our present.
Barnes does an excellent job of tracing the many people that make up who we are, reconciling the various personas we have carried throughout our past, and tracing the subjective nature of memory as we work to make sense of our present.
March 28, 2020
Read for Lit. Analysis class.
Memoir set in my home state of Idaho.
Memoir set in my home state of Idaho.
January 26, 2024
Beautifully written memoir - growing up in and being taken from her home in the wilderness, her struggle to fit in when her family began attending a Pentecostal church, and her longing to restore her relationship with her family when it was broken
November 28, 2022
Interesting dynamics of growing up first in a beautiful remote wooded community and Pentecostal household with restrictive rules and social mores. Then, a move to a larger city with rebellion against religious dogma and experimentation. Then, back to the first. It was a bit disorienting to have the sudden personal and environmental changes, but I wonder if that helped her develop the expressiveness she shows as a poet.
April 11, 2017
This was a fabulous book! It was beautifully written. Often disturbing, it is a fascinating story of growing up and finding one's way in the world. I look forward to reading more from this author.
September 7, 2025
Far too religious
January 1, 2021
Barnes writing is raw and beautiful. It evoked emotions from my own childhood, even though our experiences were vastly different. I couldn't put it down.
July 4, 2023
Minns inte längre hur det kom sig att jag över huvud taget köpte denna bok. Jag sökte en annan bok som gjort mig nyfiken, råkade se fler titlar och föll så för denna. Ja, utsidan spelade en viss roll i det hela: ett suddigt svartvitt foto där en landsväg svänger vidare in i en mörk skog. Men ovanför grantopparna svävar ett märkligt ljus. Bilden utstrålar en outgrundlig atmosfär och titeln adderar ytterligare mystik. Att det inte skulle vara totalt bortkastade pengar vittnade recensioner som jag scannade igenom och dessutom var boken en av finalisterna till 1997 års Pulitzer Prize. Så, blev jag nöjd?
Jag blev mer än så – detta är en underbar berättelse skriven på ett fantastiskt vackert språk. Det är historien om Kim själv, om hennes uppväxt i de stora skogarna i Idaho där familjen följer faderns arbete som skogshuggare från plats till plats, varhelst det finns jobb.
De lever enkelt med naturen inpå knutarna. Kim och hennes lillebror känner varje buske, varje bäck. Skogen blir deras andra hem. Men detta är i början av 60-talet, USA’s ekonomi är knackig och allt mer småskalig produktion förvandlas till stordrift. Det är bara en tidsfråga innan deras sätt att leva är ett minne blott.
Kim beskriver hur hon somnar om kvällarna med tankarna på fadern och de andra männen som arbetar i skogen.
”Their days were full of giant things – machinery and trees, the noise of saws and snapping cables. They wore their wounds, deep cuts and bloody gouges, with the nonchalence of immortals, doctoring themselves with turpentine and alcohol. I fell asleep, protected from the outside world by my father’s strength, by his laughter, louder than the screech of tree against as the wind whipped the darkness.”
De första sidorna slukade jag förundrad, hejdade mig själv och upprepade tyst det jag nyss läst – språket är så fint och skört, nära på poetiskt.
”Barnes writes forgivingly about an unforgiving world” står det på bokens baksida. Ja, en oförlåtlig värld om man menar naturen som ständigt hotar ta över om man inte tuktar den en smula, men även den kristna församling som Kims far senare ansluter sig till visar sig ha ett stråk av obarmhärtighet.
Det är en sluten värld som de lever i skogen. Vare sig Vietnamkrig eller oljepriser påverkar dem nämnvärt. Men det kan vara en påfrestande tillvaro att flytta från plats till plats. Kims pappa ser flera av de andra skogshuggarna ta till flaskan när ledigheten efter långa dagar av hårt arbete nalkas. Kanske ser han till slut endast detta val: antingen dyka in i spritdimmorna eller vända sitt hopp till Gud.
Kim Barnes skriver:
”The year we spent living in the hollow, the year I turned twelve, was the last year we would live in the woods, the last year I would sleep beneath the soft brush of pine against the tin roof, the last year I would remember our family as somehow whole.”
Genom pappans nyväckta religiositet blir hela familjen mycket nära knuten till församlingens prästfamilj. Det blir en formlig förvandling: inträdet i en gemenskap med mycket sång och musik men med strikta regler om nästan allt. Vad det får för konsekvenser kommer vi till, men att Kim Barnes så här i efterhand är beundransvärt förlåtande kan inte nog påpekas. För även om församlingen predikar gemenskap och hjälpsamhet så visar det sig att alla ändå inte är välkomna.
Broder Lang, församlingens präst och andlige ledare, får plötsligt flera uppenbarelser och anar Satan lura i hörnen. Detta är en församling som tillhör väckelserörelsen (Pentacostalism, jag vet inte om det finns en svensk motsvarighet) där uppenbarelser, tungomålstalande och helande ses som högst normala företeelser.
Det visar sig vara i Lola som Broder Lang tycker sig se Djävulens verk skymta. Lola, Kims mammas bästa väninna som trots att denna varit en mycket aktiv medlem i kyrkan, förskjuts nu med hela sin familj av en församling som tycks enig. Men Kim ser sin mamma gråta tyst där hon står i köket böjd över diskhon.
Lola var vacker även utan smycken eller smink som givetvis var strängeligen förbjudet att använda:
”Even in shapeless skirts and high-necked blouses, there was something unfettered about her, something beautiful. Maybe it was this that caused Brother Lang to dream.” Högst troligt, enligt mig.
Men förskjutningen blir en allvarlig varning som Kim och alla kvinnorna i den lilla kyrkan tar till sig:
”This was my mother’s lesson, and my own, a lesson I have not yet unlearned: be still, be invisible. Do not draw attention to yourself, for in doing so you become a target. […] Even then, before I knew what awaited me in the world outside our circle, I felt the threat that I as a woman was to myself and those around me.”
Det är beklämmande att läsa, men säkert inte ovanligt. En kvinna tycks alltid kunna göras skyldig hur hon än beter sig.
Som en ganska sekulariserad läsare höjer jag ibland på ögonbrynen åt vad som skildras från väckelsemötena, men Kim Barnes beskriver allt med största respekt och ödmjukhet. Det vinner berättelsen enormt mycket på, detta är vare sig bekännelselitteratur eller smädesskrift. Hon står på den unga kvinnas sida som hon en gång var och hon dömer inte heller sina föräldrar. Det är stort och gör att förståelsen växer för alla personer man möter i boken.
Oklart om det beror på arbetsmarknadens läge eller inte, så får Kims pappa en dag en uppenbarelse som får dem att till slut lämna skogslivet för ett liv i staden Lewiston. Han börjar arbeta med att frakta timmer om nätterna.
Kim är nu lite äldre, tolv år, och börjar en ny skola där hon ser jämnåriga flickor göra sig fina utan dåligt samvete. I hemlighet testar hon att sminka sig:
”What I saw in the mirror thrilled me: color, contrast, a face that might draw the attention of young men like the ones whose faces adorned my wall. I looked like a ruined woman. Even the sound of it was delicious.”
Sen skrubbar hon av sig alltihop:
”I would keep my twin safe, keep her existence a secret.”
En ung flickas naturliga önskan att göra sig fin, men också en längtan efter att vara som andra.
Naturligtvis har familjen ingen TV, där visas bara en massa syndfulla program och filmer, men Kim har en liten transistorradio på rummet och hon låter sig somna till tonerna av den senaste musiken och radiopratarens trygga röst:
”In a way, we were alike, he and I, alone in the rooms, conversing with the air. Kevin was his name, and sometimes he asked me questions as though I could answer. ’How ya doin’ tonight? Ready to rock and roll?”
När den vuxna Kim ser tillbaka på detta, undrar hon om ifall föräldrarna hade vetat, skulle de då ha ansett att det var just detta radioprogram som blev hennes syndafall?
Oavsett, så kommer så småningom Kim i dåligt sällskap. Hon har ingen att ty sig till skolan, osminkad och klädd i långa kjolar som hon är. Det blir grannflickan som röker och redan har pojkvän som förbarmar sig över henne.
Tillsammans fördriver de kvällarna med att röka, springa längs gatorna, gå på parties med för mycket alkohol och nyfikna pojkhänder. Kim vantrivs med skola, familj, kyrka. Situationen blir alltmer ohållbar och till slut försöker hon rymma hemifrån. I sista stund lyckas hennes mamma hejda flykten.
Som straff och med förhoppning på bättring, tvingas hon tillbringa sommaren efteråt hos familjen Lang. Jag ska inte gå in på detaljer, men det blir en omvälvande sommar där hon till en början får lära känna vad som verkar vara vänligt överseende och förlåtelse men som senare visar sig vara ingenting annat än falskhet och djupaste förakt.
Det är en skildring som nästan fick mig att tappa hakan av förtrytelse: men hon är ju bara ett barn! Bara fjorton år! Trots detta: Kim Barnes dömer ingen, pekar aldrig finger.
Boken avslutas med att Kim går ut high school, flyttar hemifrån och försöker efter några år att sluta fred med sin far. Hon gör det genom att ta med sig far och bror på en jakt i de gamla hemtrakterna.
Under färden ser de hur mycket som har förändrats. Platser där de bott som totalt har vuxit igen, naturen har slukat precis allt. Andra ställen har blommat upp. Och så Snake River, den mäktiga floden som till slut blev tämjd genom det enorma dammbygget som stod klart 1973. Dworshak Dam, USA’s fjärde största damm, vars byggnation orsakade kontroverser eftersom många ansåg det bli för stora ingrepp i den naturliga vildmarken.
Allt förändras med tiden. Om Kim och fadern någonsin slöt riktig fred med varandra är oklart. Han kunde inte släppa besvikelsen över att dottern till slut lämnade kyrkan för gott. Vad han kanske inte insåg var hur mycket hennes uppväxt skulle prägla henne, både den stora skogen och kyrkan. Och att hon i högsta grad lever det kristna budskapet trots allt: detta att kunna förlåta. Det är den här romanen ett bevis på. Det är stort att läsa.
Jag avslutar med den dikt av William Stafford som Kim Barnes låter inleda sin bok. Väldigt vacker. Mycket tänkvärd.
”Willows never forget how it feels
to be young.
Do you remember where you came from?
Gravel remembers.
Even the upper end of the river
believes in the ocean.
Exactly at midnight
yeasterday sighs away.
What I believe is,
all animals have one soul.
Over the land they love
they crisscross forever.”
Jag blev mer än så – detta är en underbar berättelse skriven på ett fantastiskt vackert språk. Det är historien om Kim själv, om hennes uppväxt i de stora skogarna i Idaho där familjen följer faderns arbete som skogshuggare från plats till plats, varhelst det finns jobb.
De lever enkelt med naturen inpå knutarna. Kim och hennes lillebror känner varje buske, varje bäck. Skogen blir deras andra hem. Men detta är i början av 60-talet, USA’s ekonomi är knackig och allt mer småskalig produktion förvandlas till stordrift. Det är bara en tidsfråga innan deras sätt att leva är ett minne blott.
Kim beskriver hur hon somnar om kvällarna med tankarna på fadern och de andra männen som arbetar i skogen.
”Their days were full of giant things – machinery and trees, the noise of saws and snapping cables. They wore their wounds, deep cuts and bloody gouges, with the nonchalence of immortals, doctoring themselves with turpentine and alcohol. I fell asleep, protected from the outside world by my father’s strength, by his laughter, louder than the screech of tree against as the wind whipped the darkness.”
De första sidorna slukade jag förundrad, hejdade mig själv och upprepade tyst det jag nyss läst – språket är så fint och skört, nära på poetiskt.
”Barnes writes forgivingly about an unforgiving world” står det på bokens baksida. Ja, en oförlåtlig värld om man menar naturen som ständigt hotar ta över om man inte tuktar den en smula, men även den kristna församling som Kims far senare ansluter sig till visar sig ha ett stråk av obarmhärtighet.
Det är en sluten värld som de lever i skogen. Vare sig Vietnamkrig eller oljepriser påverkar dem nämnvärt. Men det kan vara en påfrestande tillvaro att flytta från plats till plats. Kims pappa ser flera av de andra skogshuggarna ta till flaskan när ledigheten efter långa dagar av hårt arbete nalkas. Kanske ser han till slut endast detta val: antingen dyka in i spritdimmorna eller vända sitt hopp till Gud.
Kim Barnes skriver:
”The year we spent living in the hollow, the year I turned twelve, was the last year we would live in the woods, the last year I would sleep beneath the soft brush of pine against the tin roof, the last year I would remember our family as somehow whole.”
Genom pappans nyväckta religiositet blir hela familjen mycket nära knuten till församlingens prästfamilj. Det blir en formlig förvandling: inträdet i en gemenskap med mycket sång och musik men med strikta regler om nästan allt. Vad det får för konsekvenser kommer vi till, men att Kim Barnes så här i efterhand är beundransvärt förlåtande kan inte nog påpekas. För även om församlingen predikar gemenskap och hjälpsamhet så visar det sig att alla ändå inte är välkomna.
Broder Lang, församlingens präst och andlige ledare, får plötsligt flera uppenbarelser och anar Satan lura i hörnen. Detta är en församling som tillhör väckelserörelsen (Pentacostalism, jag vet inte om det finns en svensk motsvarighet) där uppenbarelser, tungomålstalande och helande ses som högst normala företeelser.
Det visar sig vara i Lola som Broder Lang tycker sig se Djävulens verk skymta. Lola, Kims mammas bästa väninna som trots att denna varit en mycket aktiv medlem i kyrkan, förskjuts nu med hela sin familj av en församling som tycks enig. Men Kim ser sin mamma gråta tyst där hon står i köket böjd över diskhon.
Lola var vacker även utan smycken eller smink som givetvis var strängeligen förbjudet att använda:
”Even in shapeless skirts and high-necked blouses, there was something unfettered about her, something beautiful. Maybe it was this that caused Brother Lang to dream.” Högst troligt, enligt mig.
Men förskjutningen blir en allvarlig varning som Kim och alla kvinnorna i den lilla kyrkan tar till sig:
”This was my mother’s lesson, and my own, a lesson I have not yet unlearned: be still, be invisible. Do not draw attention to yourself, for in doing so you become a target. […] Even then, before I knew what awaited me in the world outside our circle, I felt the threat that I as a woman was to myself and those around me.”
Det är beklämmande att läsa, men säkert inte ovanligt. En kvinna tycks alltid kunna göras skyldig hur hon än beter sig.
Som en ganska sekulariserad läsare höjer jag ibland på ögonbrynen åt vad som skildras från väckelsemötena, men Kim Barnes beskriver allt med största respekt och ödmjukhet. Det vinner berättelsen enormt mycket på, detta är vare sig bekännelselitteratur eller smädesskrift. Hon står på den unga kvinnas sida som hon en gång var och hon dömer inte heller sina föräldrar. Det är stort och gör att förståelsen växer för alla personer man möter i boken.
Oklart om det beror på arbetsmarknadens läge eller inte, så får Kims pappa en dag en uppenbarelse som får dem att till slut lämna skogslivet för ett liv i staden Lewiston. Han börjar arbeta med att frakta timmer om nätterna.
Kim är nu lite äldre, tolv år, och börjar en ny skola där hon ser jämnåriga flickor göra sig fina utan dåligt samvete. I hemlighet testar hon att sminka sig:
”What I saw in the mirror thrilled me: color, contrast, a face that might draw the attention of young men like the ones whose faces adorned my wall. I looked like a ruined woman. Even the sound of it was delicious.”
Sen skrubbar hon av sig alltihop:
”I would keep my twin safe, keep her existence a secret.”
En ung flickas naturliga önskan att göra sig fin, men också en längtan efter att vara som andra.
Naturligtvis har familjen ingen TV, där visas bara en massa syndfulla program och filmer, men Kim har en liten transistorradio på rummet och hon låter sig somna till tonerna av den senaste musiken och radiopratarens trygga röst:
”In a way, we were alike, he and I, alone in the rooms, conversing with the air. Kevin was his name, and sometimes he asked me questions as though I could answer. ’How ya doin’ tonight? Ready to rock and roll?”
När den vuxna Kim ser tillbaka på detta, undrar hon om ifall föräldrarna hade vetat, skulle de då ha ansett att det var just detta radioprogram som blev hennes syndafall?
Oavsett, så kommer så småningom Kim i dåligt sällskap. Hon har ingen att ty sig till skolan, osminkad och klädd i långa kjolar som hon är. Det blir grannflickan som röker och redan har pojkvän som förbarmar sig över henne.
Tillsammans fördriver de kvällarna med att röka, springa längs gatorna, gå på parties med för mycket alkohol och nyfikna pojkhänder. Kim vantrivs med skola, familj, kyrka. Situationen blir alltmer ohållbar och till slut försöker hon rymma hemifrån. I sista stund lyckas hennes mamma hejda flykten.
Som straff och med förhoppning på bättring, tvingas hon tillbringa sommaren efteråt hos familjen Lang. Jag ska inte gå in på detaljer, men det blir en omvälvande sommar där hon till en början får lära känna vad som verkar vara vänligt överseende och förlåtelse men som senare visar sig vara ingenting annat än falskhet och djupaste förakt.
Det är en skildring som nästan fick mig att tappa hakan av förtrytelse: men hon är ju bara ett barn! Bara fjorton år! Trots detta: Kim Barnes dömer ingen, pekar aldrig finger.
Boken avslutas med att Kim går ut high school, flyttar hemifrån och försöker efter några år att sluta fred med sin far. Hon gör det genom att ta med sig far och bror på en jakt i de gamla hemtrakterna.
Under färden ser de hur mycket som har förändrats. Platser där de bott som totalt har vuxit igen, naturen har slukat precis allt. Andra ställen har blommat upp. Och så Snake River, den mäktiga floden som till slut blev tämjd genom det enorma dammbygget som stod klart 1973. Dworshak Dam, USA’s fjärde största damm, vars byggnation orsakade kontroverser eftersom många ansåg det bli för stora ingrepp i den naturliga vildmarken.
Allt förändras med tiden. Om Kim och fadern någonsin slöt riktig fred med varandra är oklart. Han kunde inte släppa besvikelsen över att dottern till slut lämnade kyrkan för gott. Vad han kanske inte insåg var hur mycket hennes uppväxt skulle prägla henne, både den stora skogen och kyrkan. Och att hon i högsta grad lever det kristna budskapet trots allt: detta att kunna förlåta. Det är den här romanen ett bevis på. Det är stort att läsa.
Jag avslutar med den dikt av William Stafford som Kim Barnes låter inleda sin bok. Väldigt vacker. Mycket tänkvärd.
”Willows never forget how it feels
to be young.
Do you remember where you came from?
Gravel remembers.
Even the upper end of the river
believes in the ocean.
Exactly at midnight
yeasterday sighs away.
What I believe is,
all animals have one soul.
Over the land they love
they crisscross forever.”
January 26, 2010
This was a book that the library is holding discussions for. Not really into book discussions, but wanted to see what it was all about. Started slow and then got really interesting. Had many of the same thoughts as the main character growing up with religion and then turning away when in middle school. THis is a book that I think all parents should read. It shows what can happen to daughters when we fail to listen to them and just dictate.
June 16, 2022
The book does an excellent job of reckoning with a complex and painful religious upbringing. Here's one of my favorite passages from the book:
I think of how long we search to find that place we might call ours, where we might feel we have found a home: the perfect house in the perfect town; the secret hollow; that place in the heart we call love; that state of grace we call salvation. Yet it is easy for me to intellectualize my parents' quest for a new life, to case my father as the villainous male, an extension of the patriarchy that doomed my mother to victimization. I know that they will tell me it was nothing but the call of God, nothing but the Truth that drew them to the church. And I remember that call. I have felt the purging and radiating calm of being born again. I have spoken in tongues, have healed and been healed. I have seen demons cast out and watched a man live forty days without food. I saw the paleness of my father's face that morning after the demon found him. I remember these things without doubt, beyond reason, just as I remember my mother's hair, her movie-star beauty and the way my father looked at her when he came from his work of cutting and falling, taking only the best trees, the ones he could sell and keep his soul alive.
...
I sometimes believe I can excise the past from my soul, consider it as my father once considered a stand of timber—test each memory for soundness, recognize the true ring of the unbroken, concentric circles. I could say my father only imagined the demon roaming our house, I could say that the words I spoke in tongues were the unintelligible mutterings of exhaustion. I could say that no memory is more or less sound, no story more true than the one before: my father loved the land and his wife, his family and his god; my father feared the chaos of his own nature and delivered us from the wilderness into a life I am still aswirl in. I carry it all with me, in the quiet pools and strong currents of my being.
August 9, 2021
Idahoan author Kim Barnes recalls her youth growing up in a logging community in Idaho where her father worked and felt at home with the rugged life of hunting and fishing and all that the world of outdoor life has to offer. Kim's mother was once a classy gal wearing makeup and smoking. It was an image Kim never saw because under her father's insistence, the family became deeply involved with religion. Kim went from wearing cute clothes to plain dresses that covered her knees and letting her hair grow. No problem in school where others from her church wore the same look until Kim advanced to high school in another town. She stuck out and felt ridiculed for her dress and behavior. The family attended church many nights other than just Sunday worship services. At an early age, Kim was regarded has having a special gift of healing. But the family moved out of their small community to a much larger town where Kim became rebellious against her father's authority. She did poorly in school and engaged in smoking and hanging out with an unsavory element. She ran away from home and when found her parents told her they would send her to a juvenile detention home or send her to live with their former preacher and his family in another community. She chose the latter and took to heart the kindness offered her by the family until one day the preacher's wife told Kim that she had brought evil into their home by trying to seduce her son-in-law. While it's not uncommon for teenagers to rebel against authority, Kim seems to have carried a love/hate relationship with her father, and she felt her mother had given in to total submission to her father. Her memoir is full of incidents that centered on guilt which her religious training underscored. No sense of resolution with her father, family or faith seems to have occurred. She left no reason for me to follow up on her adult life.
February 24, 2024
The books kept me anchored - not in the real world, but in the worlds I carried with me.
Sometimes I thought pleasure inseparable from pain and wondered if I'd ever know when one became the other. It all seemed a riddle to me, a world in which things were not as they appeared, as though our emotions were reflected back on us, reversed, warped. What caused me worldly pleasure was the very thing that caused me spiritual pain.
My only havenaybin silence, in stillness, and I hid behind my books, folded in on myself until I sat like a pretzel, a knot of elbows and knees.
Even now it scares me to understand how easily is soul may pass from one dimension of itself into another, as of the boundaries separating what we are and what we might become, given an infinite set of motivations and conditions, our little more than the line between waking and sleep, between story, memory, dream.
Pain is nothing that cannot be reinvented. Like so many things, it's a matter of perspective. So many things depend on the stories we tell ourselves, or on the stories that others tell of us. The story itself can change, be enlarged, be diminished.
My mothers emotions were no doubt closer to dear and concern than any sort of chivalric nonsense, and like many women, she quelled her tremors of anxiety by controlling what she could: the state of her household.
Sometimes I thought pleasure inseparable from pain and wondered if I'd ever know when one became the other. It all seemed a riddle to me, a world in which things were not as they appeared, as though our emotions were reflected back on us, reversed, warped. What caused me worldly pleasure was the very thing that caused me spiritual pain.
My only havenaybin silence, in stillness, and I hid behind my books, folded in on myself until I sat like a pretzel, a knot of elbows and knees.
Even now it scares me to understand how easily is soul may pass from one dimension of itself into another, as of the boundaries separating what we are and what we might become, given an infinite set of motivations and conditions, our little more than the line between waking and sleep, between story, memory, dream.
Pain is nothing that cannot be reinvented. Like so many things, it's a matter of perspective. So many things depend on the stories we tell ourselves, or on the stories that others tell of us. The story itself can change, be enlarged, be diminished.
My mothers emotions were no doubt closer to dear and concern than any sort of chivalric nonsense, and like many women, she quelled her tremors of anxiety by controlling what she could: the state of her household.
August 31, 2017
Kim Barnes paints a thoughtful picture of logging life during its transition from smaller logging companies run by families who lived in the forests where they worked, to industry giants who stripped the land. It's not an environmental memoir at all, but she really does share the beauty of their lifestyle without getting bogged down with bucolic fluff.
The heart of the story is about a girl struggling with her family's religion and values, and trying to figure out where her value lies in that world. Although her family was more strict than mine, I can relate to her struggle to develop and maintain a sense of identity in a home where God is constantly threatening a return, anything that comes from within us is evil, and sin and temptation can found in the quotidian.
This line especially hit home when I think about why I don't live the lifestyle or beliefs of my family:
"I wanted to be part of a community, a family, that believed the next day or year, the next son or daughter, held the promise of something other than inherent imperfection and destruction."
The heart of the story is about a girl struggling with her family's religion and values, and trying to figure out where her value lies in that world. Although her family was more strict than mine, I can relate to her struggle to develop and maintain a sense of identity in a home where God is constantly threatening a return, anything that comes from within us is evil, and sin and temptation can found in the quotidian.
This line especially hit home when I think about why I don't live the lifestyle or beliefs of my family:
"I wanted to be part of a community, a family, that believed the next day or year, the next son or daughter, held the promise of something other than inherent imperfection and destruction."
September 3, 2022
This is a refreshingly honest story of a girl's journey from naive obiescence to self acceptance. What I enjoyed most about it was that I honestly had no idea where the story was going to go, but I wanted to keep reading to find out. I also enjoyed that it was relatable, and the author was content to have events significant because of the meaning they held for the protagonist within the context of that point in the story. There were very few times that the prose seemed over-embellished or a simile seemed unnecessary or a noun had been forced to play the role of a verb to avoid needing an adjective (journalist writers do this all the time) - nobody can "snug" a rifle against their cheek.* Hence 4 stars. An enjoyable, relatable, well written and honest story. I'd recommend it.
*Oh. I take that back. Apparently it's a North American thing and Mirriam-Webster is cool with 'snug' being used as a verb. My bad.
*Oh. I take that back. Apparently it's a North American thing and Mirriam-Webster is cool with 'snug' being used as a verb. My bad.
January 18, 2023
Resonant for me as an ex-pat Idahoan. Full of haunting and clear imagery of northern Idaho, woven into her own story. I appreciated the double-mindedness about her religious experiences, and found myself weeping at the sight of the deadfall damming her childhood creek. Beneath the moving portrait of how one moves through self-loathing, sin, and patriarchy, I found myself especially intrigued by the portrait of a logger.
It's very tempting to want to know how and why a person can participate in the destruction of the land one loves. We see glimpses. Is it a simple-minded inability to see the wilderness as anything but exhausted and eternal? A deeply held, Christian self loathing and desire to sacrifice what gives us pleasure? A sense of struggle with an entity that kills your friends and family? These seem to be some of the micro-personal explanations for it. (Though I have to wonder if the drive for profit is so strong that people would find the motivation to log, somehow).
It's very tempting to want to know how and why a person can participate in the destruction of the land one loves. We see glimpses. Is it a simple-minded inability to see the wilderness as anything but exhausted and eternal? A deeply held, Christian self loathing and desire to sacrifice what gives us pleasure? A sense of struggle with an entity that kills your friends and family? These seem to be some of the micro-personal explanations for it. (Though I have to wonder if the drive for profit is so strong that people would find the motivation to log, somehow).
October 2, 2025
Barnes' deeply personal memoir delves into the specifics of her upbringing in a stifling Christian-based cult. Her formative years draw her into the social and religious intricacies of her family's chosen faith and contrast what happens when she doesn't comply with her parents and their leaders. Eventually, she takes a path to a sustainable, modern lifestyle with a look back at what she left behind. Readers of "Educated," by Tara Westover, will enjoy Barnes' lyrical descriptions of a story unfolding against the backdrop of central Idaho.
February 10, 2019
Reading Kim Barnes's haunting and beautifully written memoir, I had the sensation that I had experienced her life, or would have, if my parents had chosen Idaho instead of a rural patch of Massachusetts to live their isolated, hardscrabble lives. Barnes has the gift of relating a singular, unique experience, and making her readers feel that experience as their own. Her themes: Family, loss, rites of passage, and the yearning for home and country. Highly recommended.
March 31, 2021
Kim Barnes' memoir recounts her childhood in a lumber town in Idaho in the 1960's and early 1970's. Her parents belonged to a Pentecostal church with strict social rules (skirts below the knee, no pierced ears, no TV, women to have long hair) -- though as she tells it, her parents smoked cigarettes incessantly. Kim rebelled and left home after high school, but as she grew into herself she and her parents reconciled. The descriptions of the Idaho forest are lyrical.
March 19, 2023
Kim Barnes writes beautifully. This book is heartfelt yet numbing with some of the horrors that extreme religious worship most always brings upon the innocent children. Some rebel, others go along and become perpetrators later on. It is very ugly the way some humans coerce and abuse the children in the name of their gods.
February 24, 2024
This is a beautifully written book that wrenches at your heart. I was saddened by the author's encounter with "Christianity" in this form, a Pentecostalism that was heavy on legalism and did not seem to offer much grace or mercy. I am sorry she seems to have missed an encounter with God's love and truth.
December 18, 2017
This book about a young woman brought up in a Fundamentalist Christian community and family is extremely relevant for our times. Beautiful and poetic language. Surprising twists and turns that kept me fascinated with the story.
March 31, 2021
This was a beautifully written memoir, but I struggled to get engaged in her story. There were parts where I was engrossed by her every word, and there were parts where I was less than. This was probably more like 3.5 stars for me, but I rounded up since it was so well-written.
March 20, 2017
3.5 stars
January 30, 2018
My writing professor read the baptism scene aloud to us in college and I never forgot it. A fascinating book with some really beautiful, harsh truths about religion.
August 1, 2018
I loved this book. It was so beautifully written and the characters are completely believable. I learned a lot about growing up in the woods of Idaho and living, basically, off grid.
January 6, 2019
Fascinating psychological-emotional memoir set against deep physical landscape. Resonant.
August 13, 2020
Relatable and real. Enjoyed this volatile coming of age story.
November 24, 2020
All these tiny towns and landmarks I know... What a place-- the forests of idaho.
December 17, 2022
Lots of poignant passages amid the author’s reconciliation of her past. She cleary needed this story to be told.
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