Hungry for the World: A Memoir

by Kim Barnes, James Woodcock (Illustrator)

Fans of Educated by Tara Westover are sure to fall for this "beautifully written" narrative ( The New York Times Book Review) of self-discovery and personal triumph from the author of the Pulitzer Prize–nominated memoir In the Wilderness.

Here is the story of how an intelligent and passionate young woman, yearning for an understanding of the world beyond her insular family life, found her way.

On the day of her 1976 high school graduation in Lewiston, Idaho, Kim Barnes decided she could no longer abide the patriarchal domination of family and church. After a disagreement with her father–a logger and fervent adherent to the Pentecostal Christian faith–she gathered her few belongings and struck out on her own. She had no skills and no funds, but she had the courage and psychological sturdiness to make her way, and to eventually survive the influence of a man whose dominance was of a different and more menacing sort. Hungry for the World is a classic story of the search for knowledge and its consequences, both dire and beautiful.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2000

About the author

I 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.

Reviews

[Joan Edgar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book started out beautifully--when this woman described what it was like to be a little girl who worshipped her father, her voice was so true and beautiful--I though I was going to love this book. But the lion's share of the book was her story of horrible degradation, lots of blaming, and then at the end of the book she has come through it somehow, to a good life. She never explains what happened to make that amazing change in her life--just a few platitudes--which I believe would have been so interesting to experience through her voice. Disappointed after having such high hopes, based on the beautiful true writing in the first 25% of the book.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

wow, this lady had an insane childhood.... i'd like to know more about her new life, though. she seems to fall into the "but one day i just stopped acting crazy," camp, which seems to be the moral of a lot of the memoirs i've read recently. i'm not sure i how satisfying that reasoning is for th reader, but i guess that's the best explanation people can come up with.

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not remember reading this book, though I wrote it in my book journal. So I must have. Unmemorable title, perhaps? Uh...

[Baff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m almost at the end of this memoir and I would recommend this memoir. I thought this memoir was about a girl growing up off the grid in Idaho in a family of religious zealots, and it is in part about that, but that’s just part of it. It was very interesting to me, a big city and suburban person, to read of the satisfaction., and even joy, of fending for yourself in the woods of Idaho. I’d say that half of this book covers her family life, but the bottom half of the book deals with her unhealthy relationship with her partner David. I think the author beautifully covers the beauty and peril of losing oneself in a relationship, both as a child and later as a young woman. This book covers the many cycles of being lost and then found, but even in the dangerous situations she finds herself in, or even chooses; she is truly trying to find her true path as an independent person and she knows her worth.

[Nann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim Barnes ended her widely-acclaimed 1996 memoir In the Wilderness at her high school graduation. Hungry for the World picks up where that left off with her period of young-adult rebellion against her parents' conservative lifestyle and Pentacostal faith. She didn't go far -- an apartment in her hometown of Lewiston, Idaho. She got a job at a bank. She partied, drank and smoked a lot. The most dangerous behavior was her two-year liaison with Dave, a man who emotionally and physically abused her. Through it all she maintained a visiting-day relationship with her parents and her beloved grandmother. Eventually she escaped from Dave's controlling orbit and found a new future for herself as a college student.

Since the memoirs were published she has written two novels that have roots in her upbringing.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kim Barnes is a beautiful writer. She has a way of describing the world - particularly the forests and rivers of central Idaho - that positively sings. This book, her memoir, is the third book of hers I’ve read. It’s a difficult story, but feels important in understanding some of the more extreme aspects of our region. Barnes skillfully shows us the dotted line between the environment we’re raised under and how those characteristics can play out in a less than perfect world (in this case, how David preyed on her deeply-rooted assumptions of the roles women hold in relationships). It’s a tough book to read, but a honest one, and one I found interesting in understanding Idaho north of the Treasure Valley bubble (and Eastern Washington, frankly, too).

[Jeanette Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard one to rate! A disturbing book for sure! Even too dark for me at moments and I’m known for reading dark books. Very descriptive writing and definitely feel this author’s despair detailing her memoir and her path to finding love and self love.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting story beautifully written. Extremely vulnerable and captivating

[Elizabeth Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lyrically written memoir of a teenage girl trying to find the love she felt as a young child.

[Christine Geisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Kim Barnes at a writer's conference in Southampton, NY. I sat there in the audience as she read from her book, mouth a little hanging open by the end. I was beyond captivated by her stance, words, and incredible talent. I only got to speak with her for a few minutes, but that talk changed me. Just like her writing, she is remarkably compelling and bright.

This novel is the telling of her rebellious teen years: how she became defiant, the consequences of her rebellion, and the aftermath of it all. The prose in Hungry for the World exudes a certain dream-like quality, almost as if you're riding atop this twisting wind that could keep you lifted or suddenly plummet, drop you. You will feel as if you might just land anywhere, but then she will steady you and grip you all over again. Her words read easily, smoothly, and hold the promise of satisfaction.

The plot and characters are both wonderful and terrifying--the best combination. They will please you and excite you and sadden you. Hungry for the World brings out the emotional whirlwind in the reader, and all the while you will be rooting for Barnes.

I will definitely be reading more of her work very soon.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

[Isabel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having thought well of A Country Called Home I was looking forward to Kim Barnes' memoir. Seemingly effortess luminous prose descriptions of place and memory are a joy to read... yet, my lesson from having read this book was not the one I had anticipated; it is instead to relentlessly guard and protect my reading energy even from authors whom I thought I could trust. I think I understand her point in having written of her experience, and I bear the burden of not having done my due diligence in where this plot might lead, but I leave this book feeling that the author has vomited out all the toxicity of a horrendous experience from nearly 30 yrs ago into the current time and space of my life. I now bear a portion of her scars, a result I did not consciously agree to.

[Efox · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was kind of a rough read for me, but I appreciate what Barnes was trying to do - reconcile the little girl that she was, with the teenager in rebellion, including her young adult foray into a dark abusive relationship, with the woman she is now. I think that most of us have episodes in our lives, relationships, that we have looked back on later and wondered how that could possibly have been us. I think that the struggle with how to reconcile who we were with who we are is something that is pretty universal, and unfortunately, I think Barnes's relationship is also one that many people can relate to. But it was dark and it was a hard read. I really appreciated the honesty and the struggle, but it really left me wanting something more.

[Sarah Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike Augusten Burrough's disturbing memoir, Barnes's "Hungry for the World" leaves the reader with hope, knowing that while her disturbing experiences as a young adult influence and shape who she is, she has persevered through and come out on the other side relatively "normal", or at least well-balanced. Barnes's writing is detailed, "un-self-pitying" as the cover states. She makes you grieve for her without saying, "look at me, look what I endured, look what was done to me." Here is honest recognition of the sway the heart has on our actions... here the influence of the father, religion, men, faith.

Excellent read. I imagine her first memoir will be equally good.

[YELENA IRWIN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as part of the summer reading program at the local public library. Fairly difficult read for me as I can identify pretty closely with some of the struggles the heroine experiences on her way to adulthood. Set in beautiful North Idaho where I would like to visit at some point and maybe do some hunting and fishing. One of the saddest things about the memoir is the way that the fundamentalist Pentecostal church the author and her family attended misrepresented the God of the Bible. God is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth; instead, the traditions of man have so perverted Christianity that even in a Bible preaching church such as that one God can be absent. It truly saddens me.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Kim Barnes after reading her novel In the Kingdom of Men. I read her memoir of her early years (In the Wilderness) and then went on to the sequel, in which she strives to become her own person despite her father, and now her mother, who try to force her to accept the restrictions of their strict Pentecostal faith. She resists, only to fall prey to controlling boyfriend who nearly destroys her.

[Cheryl Turoczy Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this memoir. It is raw and real and painful and beautiful. But even more than that, it tugs at my heart and rips open my childhood and growing up memories. I suspect that only those of us born and raised in Idaho, having experienced that tug between sense of place and wanderlust, can really understand some parts of this story but it is told in a way that makes it accessible to everyone.

[Marianne Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really good for me ~ because I identified with the author. I felt a communion with her ~ I had a very similar relationship and I knew what she was feeling and why.

If you have never been through something like that ~ I'm not sure someone would get what she was saying ~ but I did.

[Peggy Jeffcoat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptionally good memoir. The author was raised in a strict Pentecostal family and as she struggles to break free from her family, she goes through some life-altering changes when she strikes out on her own after high school graduation. Kim Barnes writes beautifully about her experience of discovering herself.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can relate to Kim's experience, she is just 3 yrs younger than me. It was probably hard to document her young life, now that she has become successful and content w/ her life. She grew up in the same area of Idaho as my husband so it was fun to recognize where she lives and share her appreciation of the wilderness and the lifestyle back in the logging camps that no longer exist.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story read like fiction. The author spirals out of control but justifies her choices by saying making bad choices is better than making no choices. she strikes out against the rigidity of her family life only to find herself bound (literally and figuratively) by another man,similar in many ways to her father. I wish you could give 1/2 star ratings. this book should be 3.5 stars

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written memoir by Kim Barnes of growning up in logging camps of Idaho,and her life in Lewiston,Id. It deals with rebellion towards her religious family, making bad decisions and finally having the courage to make a good life for herself.

[Wilhelmina · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather disturbing book, which doesn't exactly explain how she ended up with a husband & children. One day she is with a creep, doing drugs, being promiscuous, and suddenly she has a husband a 2 children. Explain.......

[Amanda Gillespie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with this book. I normally don't favor memoirs but it's written so well that I felt as if I were in the authors shoes. very different from any other book I've read and I never knew what to expect next. I kept reading it every chance I got :)

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A realistic life and spiritual journey

[Mary Lucachick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was unsure why she needed to tread this ground again, and not sure what I gained when I covered it, other than a feeling that she made poor choices in her life and in her writing.

[Linda Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this memoir, but not as much as the first "Into the Wilderness". Kim is an excellent writer and knows how to tell a story that will stay with you for a long time. I love her prose.

[Sunset · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical, late 70's, female growing up in small Idaho town, religious, repressive, Pentecostal family, wild to submissive to dark to light. Much admiration for this author.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO GOOD.