Prairie Silence: A Memoir

by Melanie Hoffert

A rural expatriate’s struggle to reconcile family, home, love, and faith with the silence of the prairie land and its people.

Melanie Hoffert longs for her rural North Dakota home with its grain trucks and empty main streets. But like many, she followed the out-migration pattern to a more urban life. When she returns home during harvest to confront the silences that have kept her at arm’s length from her childhood community, she finds it’s not easy. When asked if she's found a “fella,” rather than explain that she dates women, she stops breathing and changes the subject.

In this evocative memoir, Hoffert offers a deeply personal and poignant meditation on land and community, taking listeners on a journey of self-acceptance and reconciliation.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Lesbian, Biography, Book Club

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Melanie Hoffert grew up on a farm near Wyndmere, North Dakota where she spent her childhood meandering gravel roads, listening to farmers at church potlucks, and daydreaming about impossible love. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University, where The Silent Land received the Outstanding Creative Nonfiction Thesis Award. Her essay Going Home won the Creative Nonfiction Award from The Baltimore Review; additionally, The Allure of Grain Trucks was selected as a finalist for the Writers at Work Fellowship Competition and also won the New Millennium Writings Creative Nonfiction Award. The Loft Literary Center selected her as a finalist for the Loft Mentor Series twice. Her work has also appeared in Muse & Stone and The Mochila Review.

Reviews

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to knit this book into a sweater and wear it until it’s threadbare

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know a lot about this book. Just that a girl goes home from "the Cities" to rural North Dakota to farm for a month. It's so much more than that and I am so thankful that it is. It's a book about coming out. It's a book about religion and spirituality. I highlighted on my Kindle until the ink ran out! ( you didn't know that can happen?).
Hoffert weaves word brilliantly, but she also is incredibly gifted at painting pictures with them. I look forward to more from her. Especially would like to we a novel set on her prairie. Having visited her home area, I know how starkly beautiful it can be. And the characters that live there are simply that, great characters. They would lend themselves well to some stories.
Love this new voice. Keep writing.

[ѦѺ™ · Rating 4 out of 5]

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anaïs Nin

author Melanie Hoffert takes us on a journey back to her roots in rural America where she is "not ready to be exposed" as a lesbian and where "anything not visible in North Dakota is probably abnormal."
a child of the North Dakota prairie, Melanie moves to Minneapolis to pursue her career. a call from her friend Melissa sparks something within her and Melanie decides to take a month off from work to visit her hometown during harvest and confront again the silence that has grown deep in her heart.
as Melanie relates, among others, her family dynamics, her first sexual experience, her spirituality and involvement with a Christian group, we see her growth as a person and how these factors have influenced her thinking and outlook. despite some painful experiences, Melanie moves forward and writes about them all with courage and without sounding bitter. in fact, the longing to return to the land and its people, to embrace the prairie's beauty, its stillness and be a part of it without fear of rejection resonate throughout the narrative.
eventually, Melanie finds her strength and her voice and the silence of the prairie from without and within her is broken - at least for a little while but there is still much to be done.
intimate, poignant and eloquent, this memoir is a moving testimony of one woman's struggle with her sexual identity and her love for the land that shaped her.


Disclosure of Material Connection: i received an eARC from the publisher Beacon Press through Edelweiss. i did not receive any payment in exchange for this review nor was i obligated to write a positive one. all opinions expressed here are entirely my own and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, the book's publisher and publicist or the readers of this review. this disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a city girl who moved to the ND/MN prairie boarder for college, I stole into this book with pleasure from the beginning; Melanie's relatable and approachable voice compliments her descriptive and moving story. This book really does cover the truth of inner-being and disconnect between that and the outer world, and especially for Melanie, a silent home, ND. It was a pleasure meeting her in person--her book-voice is so very true to her personality and being. I commend her for writing with and for the truth, and being true to herself no matter what might come of it.
Cheers!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished the book, I was full of questions and emotions and reflections, both for the author and myself. As time passed I kept thinking about it and going back to my relationships with family, siblings and high school best friends. I had to "up" my stars from 4 to 5 because it keeps sticking with me. Melanie was so open and generous in sharing her personal experience, it really impacts you to review your own secrets and determine if it is silence or peace or neutrality and how that impacts your life and interactions. Great work.

[Linda Ethier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melanie Hoffert's memoir was written with so much beautiful, intimate feeling, that I couldn't help but be drawn into it. I could identify so well with her lingering desire for the small town in which she grew up, as well as the discomfort she feels with its lack of anonymity. In this book, Hoffert describes her month-long return to the family farm so that she can examine and write about these conflicting feelings, while weaving in the story of her earlier years and her current "real" life.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a truly open, beautiful personal journey intermixed with the rich purity of rural North Dakota life. Amazing.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

The themes of silence and shame throughout the book made my chest hurt a bit. This is also a love letter to the countryside, to the small towns that are slowly disappearing and the people who still live there. Compassionate (sometimes too forgiving) and unpretentious, Hoffert writes like a more straightforward Mary Oliver, a less skeptical Winterson.

[rase reading]

esta tía escribe tan bonito

[Zane Hesting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have given this book three stars for horizontal story line interest, and four stars for the vertical movement we all love in memoir. I gave it four stars because I can relate to so much in this book being from the Midwest, myself. But I wondered if the scenes in "harvest retreat" she embarks on were vivid enough for readers outside of the prairie biome? This book is about people, while the prairie plays in the background, and I enjoyed that. This book has such a great commentary on love, acceptance, and life's mysteries that I gave it a four out of five. I look forward to seeing where Hoffert goes as a writer, and it is always so nice to see people write about the prairie and the plains. People writing about the plains keep me inspired to keep scribbling about my own truths, so a big thanks to Hoffert for that!

[Laura Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was able to read this book thanks to a Goodreads giveaway. I appreciate the author's willingness to send it to me in exchange for an honest review.

Prairie Silence is a book that, admittedly, took me a while to read. Not because there was anything I didn't like about the book but rather because of its slow pace. Ms Hoffert writes well and her lyrical descriptions paint vivid images in the reader's mind. She is able to create a feeling of calm and expansiveness with her words, a skill that few writers have. However, that feeling of calm makes the book a languid read--there is no plot, no action, no climax to her story. Rather, it is the story of her childhood and later return to the Midwest knowing she was gay and fearing that others would know the truth about her. She feared the reaction of the people in her community and she feared that her sexual orientation made her a sinner in God's eyes.

As a non-religious person it was difficult for me to get through the parts of the book that focused on religion and sin. I understand why the author struggled, considering her strong faith, but it seemed a little too drawn out. Maybe readers who share her faith will be able to relate better to those sections but I found myself skipping paragraphs because they became tedious to read.

On a different note I could really relate to the descriptions of the Midwest in all its openness and beauty. I live in the Midwest and have found the same feelings of calm and serenity in the seemingly endless fields. I have met people like those Ms. Hoffert describes in her book and felt a sense of familiarity as I read her descriptions of small farming communities. I have a similar appreciation for old barns with their history and strength and I share the feeling of loss each time an old barn comes down.

Ms. Hoffert has created a book that conveys the conflictedness she felt (and perhaps still feels) about her sexual orientation and religion, while at the same time conveying her love of the Midwest. It is a beautifully written, honest account of her life and her growth as a person, a book that is easy to connect to on many levels. If you are looking for an adrenaline rush this is not the book for you but if you enjoy introspective and well-crafted books, I recommend giving this one a try.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Prairie Silence is Melanie Hoffert's memoir in which she details her struggle to find who she is and determine how she fits in the community that she is used to and finds, after being away, that she loves.

I admire Ms. Hoffert's journey. Specifically the way she talks about how experiences in her life, such as her first female sexual encounter, have shaped the person that she has become. I also found it interesting that although she has traveled away and has finally found her identity, she still longs for home and the way in which she can return to her roots but still be true to herself, without having to act or be someone else once she returns there. I love how she found comfort at home, in her small town community with her neighbors and family. Additionally, her struggles with loving the Lord, and being a true Christian but also being able to love the way she needs to really hit home.

Now let me tell why I barely liked this book and only gave it two starts. First of all, it's a BORING book and moves at a snail's pace. I will be honest, it takes a lot to keep me interested in a memoir. But in the grand scheme of it all, I didn't really think Ms. Hoffert had a very interesting story to tell, and I think although she worried about what things would be like once she returned home and decided to be herself, nobody in the end really cared. Her story was all over the place and didn't really follow a true timeline. I began to forget who people were that she would mention, and after a while I stopped trying. It took me a while to read the book because I went in and out of moments of being completely uninterested.

I would have liked to hear more about how her return to farm life and rural living have also shaped the person she has become. I don't feel like I got enough of that. Her desire to return to working the land was described as a point of her story in the plot summary, but I felt that it was barely touched on.

So, although I admire Melanie Hoffert as a person who, much like me struggles with my identity and where it fits in to my family, life, and religion, I am not so impressed with her as an author.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoffert offers an intriguing exploration as to why the prairie (in this case, rural North Dakota) treasures silence, and how someone who doesn't necessarily want to stay silent deals with that unwritten rule.

This is a "going back home" memoir--Hoffert wants to gain insights into this place that made her. A place that she feels tied to, even though she left for a big city as soon as she could. But she can't turn her back on her roots, even though being gay in North Dakota is a big reason why she left.

Hoffert switches back and forth between memories and her present "harvest retreat," as she calls it. She takes time off work, takes a break from her hectic, urban life (where she often can't even get a decent view of a sunrise/sunset), and goes back to her family's farm during harvest.

I found the past scenes the most compelling. Hoffert writes these with rich description and reflection. I could feel her longing for her best friend and her heartbreak when the friend moves. Also intriguing was the fact that Hoffert was one of those "Bible kids" in high school and early college (I say that with quotes because I remember those kids!). So here we get insights into a personal spiritual struggle--trying to do what she is taught is "right" and trying to stay true to herself.

The scenes from the present read a little bit more journalistically. This makes sense, because they are occurring in the present--Hoffert hasn't had as much time to reflect on the retreat as she has had reflecting upon the past. She's like a "tourist" in this place that she called home. In many ways she is, especially since the area has changed so much (usually for the worse) in the years she has been away.

I recommend this book for many audiences: those who grew up in the rural Midwest (boy, do those prairie "silences" sound familiar to me!), those who want to learn more about the rural Midwest, and those interested in GLBT memoirs.

Hoffert may hail from North Dakota, but in Minnesota we are glad to claim her as part of our rich writing community.

[Nancy Rossman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to disclose that my initial interest in this story is that the author is a farm girl, as am I. Her deep sense of a connection to the land and to animals comes from her upbringing, which I completely understand. She never loses the connection to North Dakota, even feeling a need to defend when people learn of this and say, "Wow, really? Why? Is it as bleak as everyone says?" to which she is horrified. (I grew up in rural Ohio and get some of that so often that it made me laugh)

Melanie has a secret, so she thinks. But really, all along so many knew. She is trying HARD to reconcile her faith, her family, her sexuality and for a good bit of life ... she hides. She is SILENT. She feels shame, her fear of disappointment, she battles and in the end leaves the land to pursue her career in the city. She keeps her gay friend, Melissa, in her life all though Melissa moves to San Francisco. Melissa is depicted as the comfortable in her skin one. She pushes Melanie, and I laughed picturing the two of them.

This is a poignant and careful journey. Well done. Short but not lacking in detail and description. Everything she feared was/is for not. The ironic twist in the end is that SHE is the one who had the judgment about what everyone was thinking. How lucky Mel was to have such a great start in life and to come to grips with it all, everyone accepting and loving her and for HER to understand it all as well.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I entered to win this book on GoodReads First Reads because I know so little of small-town farm life and this sounded interesting. I was really glad to win a copy and the book certainly did not disappoint. Hoffert's prose is at once as simple and profound as the land, the people, and the life she describes. First of all, it made me think of rural life very differently; I admit to having had a fairly negative idea of prairie life as incredibly difficult and equally dull. But learning about the hardworking farm people made me appreciate their character and the value of the way they live their lives, centered around their families and community. The other thing I got from reading this book is a sense of what I missed by never being "from" anywhere--as an Air Force brat, I always thought I was lucky to have lived in many places and traveled so much. Now I realize that that very deep bond with a place and its generations of people is something I'll never truly understand. Finally, I found Hoffert's journey of discovery of her faith very moving. Rejecting the simple, orchestrated, "rah-rah" Christianity of the born-again Bible camp, with its atmosphere of intolerant self-congratulation, in favor of a much larger, kinder spirituality seemed to resonate perfectly with her new-found peace and maturity. I highly recommend this book.

[Dennis Deery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book!

Author Melanie Hoffert grew up in a small town in North Dakota. She realized at an early age that she was gay, but kept this fact hidden from her family and community for many years. Like so many rural kids, once she grew up she left her community for the big city, in this case the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Again, like many rural kids, once she'd created a life in the city she began to look back to her hometown with some longing. She decides to return home for a harvest season to take a look at her life from a new, and an old, perspective.

I enjoy homecoming memoirs, especially of a rural nature, and I really enjoy memoirs about people trying to find their place in the world. What made me love this book though is that Hoffert came to a conclusion near and dear to my heart, which is that you can only come to understand who you are when you also come to understand where you came from. Add in the fact that Hoffert describes this journey with beautifully lyrical language and you end up with a book that I nearly read in one sitting. Her descriptions of her hometown, the people and the places, rang incredibly true to me because I grew up with some of those same people and places in small-town Wisconsin.

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I began reading this, I didn’t know it was written by someone who graduated from my alma mater four years before I did! I picked this up at a great little bookstore in my hometown because it took exactly one glance at the cover (“a rural expatriate’s journey to reconcile home, love, and faith”) for me to know it would resonate. And it did. Hoffert writes beautifully about her longing for the prairie of her childhood and the struggles she faces returning as an adult.

I think anyone who has loved and left similar landscapes will understand this book on a deeply familiar level, but what I really loved about it was not so much her particular story -- although that’s what drew me to the book. Rather, I love the greater implication that we all have a story to tell, even if it’s a quiet one, and the connections we can make with other human beings often happen precisely in those ordinary moments of our lives. She takes notice of them the way writers do, and I find myself thinking about it (as well as my own stories) long after I finished the book. Because really, our stories are never finished.

[Bobbi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book! I can relate to so many things Melanie discusses, especially the silence of growing up in a small, midwestern town, where everyone is judging you, but no one talks about it! Mel explores love, family, religion and sexuality with profound wisdom and there were many times I wanted to underline a thought so that I could remember it later. Well done for her first book! I recommend it highly!

[georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

2013. 249 pages

My friends recommendation was well worth the read and trust of her judgement. This book has man inferences to what "silence" means. The silence of the prairie, the silence of ones sexuality, the silence of a family dinner, the silence of a broken relationship, and the silence of ones empty heart. How does one confront what is missing or thinks is missing, you go back home to Re-evaluate from the beginning. Great book.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of loving the prairie and leaving; a story of being gay and not knowing if it is safe to share that in one's home land; a story of returning home and finding reconciliation; a story of love for the land and the people of North Dakota. A beautifully told memoir. I hope to hear from Hoffert again.

[Daphne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful reflection on coming out and coming home. I think the author does best when she writes about her experience rather than when she waxes philosophical on the page. Some good editing could have come in handy here.

[Pat Peiffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful read with many insights and descriptive language. I would recommend to anyone who has grown up in the Midwest.

[HJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I am from the Midwest and connected with the story in a lot of ways. Good read I recommend it.

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely identified with her experiences, told my spouse to read it to better understand me.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://lesbrary.com/2013/03/08/danika...

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving memoir about growing up queer in rural North Dakota, where the land is wide open, but where people hold their emotions in check.

"Prairie silence is—I have come to believe—the way the people of the prairie mirror the land with their sturdy, hardworking, fruitful, and quiet dispositions. They are committed to each other like the soil is committed to the crop. They are uncomplaining, in the way the land dutifully recovers after tornadoes, droughts, and floods destroy a season’s harvest. They are humble and quiet, like white prairie grass in the wind. They swallow their problems, their fears, their shames, and their secrets—figuring that nature will take care of everything, somehow or other. That is, after all, how it works with the crops. And once a silence has taken hold, whatever it is, it is hard to uproot."

Melanie knew from the time she was 4 years old that she was meant to share her life with a woman. But it took her a long time to understand what her four year old self knew instinctively. Years of doubt, fear, confusion, and silence. Years of grappling with faith and feelings, with expectations and uncertainties. After building a successful career, Melanie decides to take a month long break from her corporate job in the city and return home to the farm to help with the harvest. The lessons she learns from her time on the silent prairie are poignant and healing.

I grew up in the Red River Valley - on the Minnesota side of the border, but I understand the archetype; stoic, salt of the earth, small town, white, Christian, hard working, humble, neighborly, reserved, seemingly inscrutible. This is not an environment that encourages differences. The goal always seems to be to blend in, to get along. If you have a secret, you keep it. And yet it is in opening up, facing fears, and embracing change, where true growth can occur.

[Andrea Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up gay in a land where nobody talks about feelings, nobody was (publicly) gay, and where everyone is Christian is... hard. Prairie Silence is Melanie Hoffert's memoir of being pulled to the land of North Dakota, back to her childhood farm, the golden prairie, and the solid people of her home to finally break her own silence. She describes the landscape in the exact ways I love to read.

The flat land is not dry, not dark, not lifeless. Instead, North Dakota is a painter's palette where all of the earthly colors settle. The light changes minute by minute, following unassuming subjects: a wheat field, a gravel road, a gray grain elevator.

Hoffert's book is a tender account of her struggle to reconcile her love for women with her love for God, who her Bible camp co-counselers assure her hates homosexuals.

The God I talked to as a child, the God my mom relied on to soothe my pains, the God Jessica and I had championed as teenagers was not my God, but the God of the people I met at camp. And those people introduced me to judgments about the world I couldn't accept. The most painful judgment was about the way I could love another person.

I really loved this book, and especially Melanie's descriptions of her gayness: it's not about sex but about the pure connection with, understanding of, and love for another person. The book radiates kindness and a yearning to be understood and accepted. It is a love letter to her home of North Dakota. Through her writing it is clear how deeply she loves the land, the people, and the God of her childhood.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely memoir about life, love, and faith from an expatriated small town girl. I have a very good friend who has lived a similar life: a lesbian from a tiny town in conservative North Dakota. She also has been surprisingly (to her) accepted by the people in her hometown, the ones she was so afraid to tell, to speak her truth. And though I know my friend’s story, I felt like this book really gave me even more insight into the struggle her life was for so many years; hiding her true self from the people who mattered most until she was in her 20s. I love when books give me a window into experiences that are different than mine, because it makes me (at least I hope it does) a kinder, more empathetic person.


And while the underlying issue to Hoffert’s crisis of faith is totally different than mine, that aspect of the book really resonated with me. All of her questions about God and what does being holy really mean, are questions I’ve asked as I’ve struggled with my own issues with the church and faith the last couple of years. And I really loved the conclusion she came to on those issues. She wrote what I feel so eloquently, much more eloquently than I ever could say. Overall a lovely memoir for anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider in the place that they call home.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

My take on this book is split - technically, the author’s mission is accomplished by delivering a considered memoir. There were a couple word choices struck me as odd, which disrupted the flow, and eventually the central question of coming home/coming out felt harped upon. Otherwise, the technical execution of “memoir” worked.
The split part of my take is that as someone from an equivalent, though Canadian prairie, albeit a big city as opposed to a small rural community, I feel like any evaluation of our futures in rural life are only half realized if they fail to consider the relationship between rural settler communities and indigenous communities, as tethered by land. The author makes a perfunctory mention of the the indigenous people displaced to make room for homesteaders, but otherwise does not go back for enough in a meditation on history and roots to consider what else the land has seen besides her family’s farm. Understandably, this might trouble the otherwise straightforward narrative of difference in a red state, but is a crucial vector for perspective when we re-evaluate our relationships to place, to land. I enjoyed the book, but I felt the lack of consideration for who had to be removed to make way for the small towns with which the author was concerned.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was one memoir that I feel maybe should have been an essay in a literary magazine. The story of the author's coming to terms with her sexuality in a religious community is poignant, heart-wrenching, and well-articulated, and that's about 20% of this memoir if I'm being generous. The rest of the book is heavily padded by dialogue and exposition detailing her visit back to her hometown where she visits everyone she ever knew, including her babysitter from when she was a kid, and writes down each mind-numbing encounter for you to read. It must have taken ages. Did anyone proof-read this book? Meanwhile, the one important relationship she had when she was a teen where she fell in love with a friend, is given little more than a blip at the end. The epilogue reveals a hint at how quickly she went from writing the first draft of the memoir to the final draft, no more than a few months. I don't know. I adore #rurallife and have happily (this might be contested by old friends) read Annie Dillard but this is no Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. Metaphors and similes are thrown in just for fun without curation. Anecdotes lead to nowhere. I angry sighed while reading this so often that my dog kept giving me a wary look and eventually left the room.