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Homestead
Describes how the author and her family built a wilderness homestead in 1959 Montana that grew into a flourishing ranch and recounts the many adventures that found their roots in early American western and pioneering traditions. IP.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 16, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 23, 2023
What a fun, very random read I found at the library, 3.5 stars.
Every chapter is basically a separate essay on a topic relating to her life or Montana. Not what I expected but good all the same.
She's definitely very artistic and her language is a little more poetic than I'm used to and there was way too much discussion of her parent's sex life ?? but I feel like that's art I guess.
I took a little offense with how much she complained about people moving to Montana when she did in fact move to Montana herself as an adult.
Every chapter is basically a separate essay on a topic relating to her life or Montana. Not what I expected but good all the same.
She's definitely very artistic and her language is a little more poetic than I'm used to and there was way too much discussion of her parent's sex life ?? but I feel like that's art I guess.
I took a little offense with how much she complained about people moving to Montana when she did in fact move to Montana herself as an adult.
October 1, 2018
Clear prose and a lovely front row seat to Annick's passion for Montana (and a few other outdoor kingdoms). Interesting time arc - from her early adult years to now & the gentle and not-so-gentle changes to her surroundings. Also, funny/cool contrasts between her leave-me-alone hippiness and some of her professional aspirations and contacts. Interesting to me, there were a number of personal touchpoints/ commonalities that I never expected (actual life/family events), so that added a layer to my reading experience. A bit rambly in some spots and some tiny redundancies, but mostly a lovely narrative flow.
November 25, 2018
I didn’t finish every page of the book because I got frustrated with it. I suppose I should’ve liked it since Annie Dillard was a fan, but I didn’t find it to be true to the title. I wanted to read about homesteading, not everything under the sun, plus a chapter or two about homesteading (and vague ones at that). Also didn’t have much patience for he environmentalist viewpoint. The author did have a way with words here and there, especially at the end of her chapters, but it wasn’t enough to hook me. Just not for me, I guess.
September 7, 2024
I thought this would be more of a linear story, but like other reviewer's mentioned it is more of a collection of essays. It was interesting and different from what I usually read. I'm glad that I gave it a try.
January 30, 2020
Randy came across this one in my Midwest library. Felt like I found a kindred spirit here and It was much appreciated.
July 19, 2020
Fell in love with Big Sky Country all over again as I read this book.
June 21, 2023
Beautifully written.
June 13, 2012
Annick Smith has always had a ‘desire for wildness’. This desire takes her from Chicago to Seattle to Montana where she feels the ‘ecstatic pull of landscape and sky’.
‘Homestead’ is about life in Western Montana, where coyotes cross your 163 acres of land, elks graze and black bears nibble berries at the edges. The collection of essays entwines observations and reflections on the natural environment with enduring human themes: growing up, family and friends; love and loss; myths, dreams and realities; moving and settling.
At the time of writing, Annick Smith, a widow and mother of four sons, has been living in her recycled farmhouse, in a valley that empties its waters into the Big Blackfoot River, for more than twenty years. Although she travels widely (4 of the 13 essays centre on journeys by Smith to Oregon, Alaska, the dunes of Lake Michigan and Andalusia), Smith always returns to the homestead, land and landscape she is tied to, where she feels rooted. ‘I think the place inhabits me,’ she says.
Smith writes about the West, emphasising that, as in the past, there isn’t one West but many. In ‘Better than Myth’, she reads her way into the early history of Montana via oral histories of Native Americans and the diaries and journals of immigrants to the state. In ‘Law of the Range’, a fascinating and affective essay, she talks with cattlemen and brand inspectors about the changes in their ways of life and work. The West has evolved and mutated and continues to do so. Smith admits to feeling somewhat complicit in this evolution—a writer writing about the land and wildlife she loves and, thus, attracting newcomers to the area. As relatively wealthy newcomers move in and buy up land, taxes increase and locals can no longer afford to live in the place where they grew up.
Smith denies that her home is in a wilderness—she has electricity, the telephone and not so far away neighbours. Yet, from reading ‘Homestead’ I can glimpse the everyday wonders and realities of living a ‘modern’ life in a wild place, within nature.
‘Homestead’ is a very personal book. Smith’s story, as a daughter, wife and mother, forms its bedrock. I was swept up with Smith as she fished, hiked, danced, rode and loved her way through the essay collection and admired her emotional strength and creative talents. At the same time, I was left with the sense that such a memoir, by its very character, tells only a partial tale. As Smith says when reading the diaries of early settlers, the stories are complex, ‘rich in particularities’ and ‘filled with ambiguities’. But within such stories truths are told. I would say the same can be said of ‘Homestead’. It is one woman’s story of her modern West; a story that is powerful, detailed and heartfelt.
‘Homestead’ is about life in Western Montana, where coyotes cross your 163 acres of land, elks graze and black bears nibble berries at the edges. The collection of essays entwines observations and reflections on the natural environment with enduring human themes: growing up, family and friends; love and loss; myths, dreams and realities; moving and settling.
At the time of writing, Annick Smith, a widow and mother of four sons, has been living in her recycled farmhouse, in a valley that empties its waters into the Big Blackfoot River, for more than twenty years. Although she travels widely (4 of the 13 essays centre on journeys by Smith to Oregon, Alaska, the dunes of Lake Michigan and Andalusia), Smith always returns to the homestead, land and landscape she is tied to, where she feels rooted. ‘I think the place inhabits me,’ she says.
Smith writes about the West, emphasising that, as in the past, there isn’t one West but many. In ‘Better than Myth’, she reads her way into the early history of Montana via oral histories of Native Americans and the diaries and journals of immigrants to the state. In ‘Law of the Range’, a fascinating and affective essay, she talks with cattlemen and brand inspectors about the changes in their ways of life and work. The West has evolved and mutated and continues to do so. Smith admits to feeling somewhat complicit in this evolution—a writer writing about the land and wildlife she loves and, thus, attracting newcomers to the area. As relatively wealthy newcomers move in and buy up land, taxes increase and locals can no longer afford to live in the place where they grew up.
Smith denies that her home is in a wilderness—she has electricity, the telephone and not so far away neighbours. Yet, from reading ‘Homestead’ I can glimpse the everyday wonders and realities of living a ‘modern’ life in a wild place, within nature.
‘Homestead’ is a very personal book. Smith’s story, as a daughter, wife and mother, forms its bedrock. I was swept up with Smith as she fished, hiked, danced, rode and loved her way through the essay collection and admired her emotional strength and creative talents. At the same time, I was left with the sense that such a memoir, by its very character, tells only a partial tale. As Smith says when reading the diaries of early settlers, the stories are complex, ‘rich in particularities’ and ‘filled with ambiguities’. But within such stories truths are told. I would say the same can be said of ‘Homestead’. It is one woman’s story of her modern West; a story that is powerful, detailed and heartfelt.
April 19, 2012
Annick Smith has woven together material from a dozen or so short pieces published 1988-1994, and the result is this collage of memoir and travel writing. Settling near Missoula, Montana, in 1964, Smith was married to a university teacher and hopeful film writer, who died of heart failure, leaving her with four young sons. Adopting Montana as a home, she writes about the 163-acre "homestead" of the book's title, raising her sons and entertaining friends in a log house transported there from where it had been abandoned on a property 30 miles upriver.
Actually, a river runs through this book. It's the Big Blackfoot River, the same one that figures in Norman Mclean's story about fly fishing and family. Maclean, in fact, lives close by, and she comes to know him, eventually becoming a guiding force behind the film adaptation. (She shares credits as co-producer with fellow writer and friend Bill Kittredge, and the film's director, Robert Redford. She has also produced the film "Heartland," set in frontier Montana. Her twin sons Alec and Andrew have become filmmakers in their own right, writing and directing "The Slaughter Rule," also set in Montana.)
Smith's book meanders casually across a variety of topics. There are accounts of the Montana seasons, a local band called the Mudflaps, the work of brand inspectors, her Hungarian Jewish parents who live in Chicago, summers with her two young sisters on the Michigan shore of Lake Michigan, travels to Spain and Alaska, fishing and hiking, celebrity friends, family gatherings on holidays, Montana wildlife, the Nez Perce, and the environmental impact of mining and clear cutting.
I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Montana, the outdoors, Western living, and a certain 1960s spirit that survives among the graying hippies who once fled into what was then the wilderness. I also recommend Gretel Ehrlich's "The Solace of Open Spaces," about a California filmmaker who visits Wyoming and decides to stay.
Actually, a river runs through this book. It's the Big Blackfoot River, the same one that figures in Norman Mclean's story about fly fishing and family. Maclean, in fact, lives close by, and she comes to know him, eventually becoming a guiding force behind the film adaptation. (She shares credits as co-producer with fellow writer and friend Bill Kittredge, and the film's director, Robert Redford. She has also produced the film "Heartland," set in frontier Montana. Her twin sons Alec and Andrew have become filmmakers in their own right, writing and directing "The Slaughter Rule," also set in Montana.)
Smith's book meanders casually across a variety of topics. There are accounts of the Montana seasons, a local band called the Mudflaps, the work of brand inspectors, her Hungarian Jewish parents who live in Chicago, summers with her two young sisters on the Michigan shore of Lake Michigan, travels to Spain and Alaska, fishing and hiking, celebrity friends, family gatherings on holidays, Montana wildlife, the Nez Perce, and the environmental impact of mining and clear cutting.
I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Montana, the outdoors, Western living, and a certain 1960s spirit that survives among the graying hippies who once fled into what was then the wilderness. I also recommend Gretel Ehrlich's "The Solace of Open Spaces," about a California filmmaker who visits Wyoming and decides to stay.
January 18, 2011
It's amazing how everyone's idea of homesteading is so different. The way I've been imagining it has been expanding. This gave me a new perspective on homesteading. Maybe I have a very New England mindframe. Some chapters were better than others. I thought the author was a little unfocused, and the language was too flowery for my taste.
January 26, 2009
A good read about life in the American West. Doig and Kittredge are the standard bearers for memoirs set in the mountain west. This book doesn't come close -- most likely because Smith is a transplant. The landscape is described, but not felt.
February 17, 2009
Beautiful and peaceful, I savored this autobiography in the quiet gray of an Ohio winter. It captured my dreams of homesteading in Montana, but Annick and her family did it in modern times, in the 1970s not the 1870s. A wonderful quiet book to curl up with and dream of a simpler life.
January 4, 2012
Essays about a grown up hippie emigre of Hungarian Jewish descent from Chicago and her new found life in Montana that may be interesting if the names Dick Hugo and William Kittredge are familiar otherwise not so much.
June 1, 2015
Very interesting life, but not about homesteading. Affluent well educated woman from Chicago, well connected, falls in love with Montana in the 60's and makes a home there. Well written, good life, some tragedy, overall well done, but not roughing it, as implied by the title.
February 20, 2008
I felt like I was speaking with my Grandmother when I read this book. It had a lot of her attitude about making great experiences and adventures out of everyday living.
August 11, 2014
Because I live in and love Montana, as does the author, this book gets 5 stars. Her lovely, poetic words do justice to the magic of living in a place full of beauty.
July 31, 2016
I always enjoy Milkweed publications.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews