Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond

by Amy Blackmarr

A woman in her mid-thirties moves from the city to rural Georgia and shares her reflections and discoveries about the natural world around her, from her snake phobia to life without hot water. 15,000 first printing. Tour.

Genres: Memoir, Nature, Nonfiction, Essays, Southern

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Lisa]

I pulled this book from a shelf in a used bookshop and read it immediately. Perhaps that’s how some people do things all the time, but not me! What a deep exhale it was to choose a book in this way, in this age of being influenced.

Beautiful, slow, thoughtful. Imperfect: there are moments when Blackmarr’s privilege shows in a way that was uncomfortable for me - but so many more where she is deeply self aware.

This story is one I haven’t lived but also feels well within the realm of what I might’ve lived. The attention and attachment to this cabin and pond and swamp really, really resonate.

[Mark Burris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps even better some 10-20 years after my initial read. It's a collection of essays and musings centered on living a simpler life, perfect for this (I hope) brief era of social distancing. My favorite passage: “Solitude is an easy companion. It doesn’t require much from me except the ability to be comfortable alone. Friends need more. They need my attention, my energy, and my time. On the whole, I prefer solitude. Even so, I wouldn’t trade the times I’ve spent at the pond with my friends for twice the solitary hours those times have cost me. For real friends are generous: they leave behind the warmth of their company for my memory to wrap itself around, along with the remarkable gift of having taught me to know my self.” (p. 31)

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am pretty sure I read this many years ago, or maybe I started it but never finished it. At any rate, I would have been in college, and it didn’t resonate then. It does now that I am older. This is a book about immersing yourself in country life with all its discomforts and unpredictability - from mice running across your forehead to heating water for a bath to getting help from your neighbors when your truck breaks down. Honestly, I’m too old now to want to live without hot water and insulation, but I envy the opportunity to live on a pond surrounded by a big expanse of nature.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting memoir, well written.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Restful, rustic musings

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely book about time spent in a not very comfortable abode set in peaceful and interesting setting.

[Jeff Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the age of 33, Blackmarr leaves Kansas and returned to her native state of Georgia, settling in to her Grandfather’s old fishing cabin. She doesn’t give a lot of reasons for her retreat (but does drop hints such as tired of being inside an office and three ex-husbands). Instead of reminiscing her past (which sounds colorful), she focuses on the presence, with attention to detail. She is especially aware of the natural world in a manner that reminded me of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. At first, she seems to be a little unsteady (calling on her distant neighbor to dispatch a snake or to ask about alligators. In time, she gains confidence and learns to depend on the kindness of others and the comfort of her dogs, Queenie and Max.

Many of Blackmarr’s stories are humorous. When she sees a snake that she fears to be the poisonous copperhead, a real threat to her dogs, she fetches her trusty pistol but is unable to hit it. She calls her neighbor who sends over his son with another pistol, but he also misses and returns home to fetch a shotgun and comes back and “dispatches†the snake. Afterwards, her neighbor looks at the snake and she is horrified to learn that it was a harmless corn snake. (44-45) She also has a humorous battle with mice in the cabin. The battle reaches a climax when she has a close encounter with one of the beady eyed beast. “Across my forehead went that mouse. Flushed me up out of the cover like quail and I made a beeline for the broom†(81) After being unable to wipe out the mice population, she finally causes a truce. In her stories, she appears to gain an acceptance of the natural world. In the beginning, she seems determined to dominate the natural, in a way that’s not exactly politically correct (she does have a pistol for protection and seems too trigger-happy when it comes to threatening wildlife). Surely, the natural world is violent, as those at the top eat those at the bottom, but in time Blackmarr also learns it is world that can be appreciated without a knee-jerk need to dominate.

Blackmarr prose creates pastoral images: “I was sitting on the steps with my coffee this morning, watching the pond water ripple under the breeze, and I was wondering where the golden cord is that ties this land to me,†she writes. (97) She describes the Milky Way as “a lightened path through an obsidian sky†(32)When musing about ownership (she didn’t own the cabin) and time, she pens: “Sometimes I sit out in the yard in one of those yellow lawn chairs with the frayed bottoms and watch the light move across the pond.†(167) Sprinkled into her descriptions are quotes from a well-read life: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Merton, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Heinlein, John Keats, and Scripture (to name a few).

As she becomes more secure in her life by the pond, she also learns to accept the generosity of strangers. Realizing that she has left her wallet at home and is out of gas, she presents her dilemma to two small town police officers. Needing only a dollar of gas (this was in the 90s), one officer gives her a couple of bills and the other gives her a few more and says to use it to get herself some lunch. (139f)

There are several back-stories of which we're only provided glimpses. Blackmarr mostly focuses on her relationship with nature, but in the stories we read about her weekly visits to her grandmother who is in a long-term care facility and her teaching at a community college. Her grandmother owns the property and after her death, the family sells it. Blackmarr finds she must move on and heads to the mountains of Georgia (the source of another book).

Toward the end of her time at the cabin, her dog, Queenie, gets out beyond the fence is hit by a car and is buried on the property. The story is sad, but it does provide Blackmarr with a permanent tie to the land that she (and her family) no longer own. I recommend this book. It was a treat to read and I look forward to reading other books by Blackmarr.

“Solitude is an easy companion. It doesn’t require much from me except the ability to be comfortable alone.†(31)

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

don't know how books like this get published!

[Jamie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living in south Georgia is a unique experience and the author Amy Blackmarr has been able to describe this in her book about living in a very small town in south Georgia. Living in south Georgia gives me a high respect for her novel about the encounters that she has and things that she experiences. I to have lived in a large city and moved only miles from where this story is written. I too have experience the wildlife, the rustic beauty of nature, and only wish I could get those experience down in writing.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this nonfiction work sold her business, gave up city life and moved back to her grandfather's remote fishing shack in southern Georgia. Blackmarr deals with solitude, nature, and a very rustic lifestyle. It is also a time of self-discovery and getting back to her family roots. This book appealed to me for its "getting away from it all" theme. It is for anyone who has ever dreamed of leaving the rat race of life for a chance to look inward for a change.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm 30 years old and from Georgia, so I can relate to the desire to escape from the world and "go back home" like the author of this book did. So I enjoyed it on that level. It's kind of spiritual, though--lots of meditation on nature, self, religion, the universe. I guess I was hoping for more stories about home. But this is a different sort of book, and it's not bad for what it is.

[Maryann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read. I really enjoyed the authors glimpse into her transition from a modern, comfortable life to more simple, desolate surroundings. I think many people end up being 'successful' in a life that does not feel genuine to who they really are. This is the closest I ever plan to get to experiencing that environment!

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very poetic memoir. The end suffered, though - the book was not chronological, and Blackmarr tended to group stories by emotional impact. The end was full of sad, depressing thoughts - not the impression that I think Blackmarr was going for.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, lyrical. I discovered this book while browsing the shelves of my local library. It brought back many wonderful childhood memories of time spent on a family farm in south Georgia near where I grew up.

[Erin]

great book - collection of personal essays while Amy lived alone in a cabin after deciding to change her life course

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the audio version, read by the author. It is "REAL" life captured in a compilation of essays on various subjects, such as her grandmother, and various animals, both domesticated and wild.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the most well-written or engaging, but interesting. She seems a little too crazy granola for me.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Southern writer - a recollection of life in rural Georgia. No true story line.

[Jenn]

I think Annie Dillard would approve. =]

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meditative and poetic due to its free-association structure, this book is worth reading for how it explores family and friendships and the nature of our bond with the landscape of our birth.