Living Locally

by Erica Van Horn

Living Locally selects entries from a daily journal written over five years about rural life in and around a farming valley in Tipperary, to the north of the Knockmealdown Mountains. With needle-sharp observation and in plain words, Van Horn makes remarkable what might otherwise have gone unrecorded: the familiarity of neighbours, of animals and of weather, the regularity of the patterns of transaction on roads and in nearby villages and towns, and, from an outsider’s perspective, the unfamiliarity of speech and custom. What results is a human geography whose immediacy recalls earlier local and rural records and enquiries, such as the diary of Francis Kilvert in the Welsh Borders in the 1870s, or Cecil Torr’s recollections from his Dartmoor village, Small Talk at Wreyland. In common with these is a concern with both the colloquial and the vernacular, and the strangeness found in such a concentration of repetition and usage.

Susan Howe, from her Foreword: “…a meticulous field guide of what it means to be an American discovering the embedded, entangled mysteries of being Irish.”

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

142 pages, Paperback

Published June 13, 2014

Reviews

[Lilz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never read such a niche author before and I must say, it’s a very unique experience viewing her work with all its visual significance. Unfortunately her journals drag a bit as it’s mundane every day life, but there is also a beauty in the simplicity. I would highly recommend taking a look at her visual pieces for the Living Locally series, especially Gifts From the Government.

[Brian]

What a heartwarming, sensitive, funny, poignant book this is: full of rare insights and wry observations on the Irish way of life as well as that of an ‘outsider’. These day-to-day tales of a life lived simply and with eyes and ears wide open to the countryside and its inhabitants is an absolute joy.