What do you think?
Rate this book
A Country Called Home
With her acclaimed memoir In the Wilderness Kim Barnes brought us to the great forests of Idaho, where geography and isolation shape love and family. Now, in her luminous new novel, she returns to this territory, offering a powerful tale of hope and idealism, faith and madness.
It is 1960 when Thomas Deracotte and his pregnant wife, Helen, abandon a guaranteed future in upper-crust Connecticut and take off for a utopian adventure in the Idaho wilderness. They buy a farm sight unseen and find the buildings collapsed, the fields in ruins. But they have a tent, a river full of fish, and acres overgrown with edible berries and dandelion greens. Helen learns to make coffee over a fire as they set about rebuilding the house. Though Thomas discovers he can't wield a hammer or an ax, there is a local boy, Manny ”a sweet soul of eighteen without a family of his own” who agrees to manage the fields in exchange for room and board. Their optimism and desire carry them through the early days.
But the sudden, frightening birth of Thomas and Helen's daughter, Elise, changes something deep inside their marriage. And then, in the aftermath of a tragic accident to which only Manny bears witness, suspicion, anger, and regret come to haunt this shattered family. It is a legacy Elise will inherit and struggle with, until she ultimately finds a hope of her own.
In this extraordinary novel, Kim Barnes reminds us of what it means to be young and in love, to what lengths people will go to escape loneliness, and the redemption found in family.
It is 1960 when Thomas Deracotte and his pregnant wife, Helen, abandon a guaranteed future in upper-crust Connecticut and take off for a utopian adventure in the Idaho wilderness. They buy a farm sight unseen and find the buildings collapsed, the fields in ruins. But they have a tent, a river full of fish, and acres overgrown with edible berries and dandelion greens. Helen learns to make coffee over a fire as they set about rebuilding the house. Though Thomas discovers he can't wield a hammer or an ax, there is a local boy, Manny ”a sweet soul of eighteen without a family of his own” who agrees to manage the fields in exchange for room and board. Their optimism and desire carry them through the early days.
But the sudden, frightening birth of Thomas and Helen's daughter, Elise, changes something deep inside their marriage. And then, in the aftermath of a tragic accident to which only Manny bears witness, suspicion, anger, and regret come to haunt this shattered family. It is a legacy Elise will inherit and struggle with, until she ultimately finds a hope of her own.
In this extraordinary novel, Kim Barnes reminds us of what it means to be young and in love, to what lengths people will go to escape loneliness, and the redemption found in family.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
15 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Kim Barnes
45 books125 followersI 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
August 21, 2014
I found this one a bit overwrought but still compelling and effective in shaking up my expectations. It’s a dark parable of an urban couple from Connecticut moving to the wilds of Idaho in the 60’s and finding themselves unprepared for the challenges they encounter, with tragic consequences.
Thomas is a newly-minted doctor with limited dedication to the profession and only seems to be happy when he is fishing. His young wife Helen longs to be a “free spirit” in response to the expectations of her wealthy family. They buy a farm property on a beautiful bend in the river and camp out while working to repair the terrible disrepair of the house. They hire 18 year old boy, Manny, to help, and he soon becomes an essential member of their family. Helen soon gives birth to a daughter, Elise, bringing responsibilities she is poorly equipped to handle. There is a tragedy I can’t speak of, and much of the rest of the book deals with the recovery process and the fate of Elise as the hope for the next generation.
I appreciated the author’s portrayal of a marriage founded on the partners looking unrealistically for what is missing in their own characters. Thomas is a loner, so mistrusting in others due to effectively being abandoned by his parents as a child and driven to simplify his life to a level he can control. Helen is more social and rebels against the stultifying values of her blue-blood parents. The truth that opposites attract collides with the reality that a relationship built on such a beginning needs to progress toward to middle to achieve any kind of hybrid vigor. Running away to a wilderness is tempting as a solution to life’s constraints, but such a romantic notion soon smacks against the hard realities. The following disconnected windows on the two characters reveal aspects of this set-up to the story that engaged my interests:
Thomas:
Only through living a simple life close to the earth did Tolstoy regain some sense of purpose. He gave up all his worldly possessions and took up a pauper’s existence, far better than the emotional poverty to which he’d been married.
He’s realized then that the patients were the very thing he wanted to avoid: their weeping and lament; their grimaces of agony; the awful way they took the news of their impending demise with pitiful resignation, or, worse, a cheerful nod of gratitude, as though instead of a death sentence he had just delivered them a basket of holiday fruit.
Her mercurial nature unsettled Deracotte, a state he found both uncomfortable and arousing.
He had Helen. He had this land, this place where the river ran as true as any promise he had ever known.
Helen:
More than anything, she longed for each day to be new, to surprise her with possibility.
Maybe her mother was right: maybe she did need a man to keep her in line. Always, she felt caught between the desire to act autonomously, giving no mind to her mother’s tsk-tsking tongue, and her need for affection. With Thomas she found both. There was something endearing about his overweening nature, his need to control every minute detail of her life.
“You want to have your cake and eat it too,” her mother scolded. And here was the truth of it: she had her doctor, and he was delicious.
“Water finds its own level,” she warned Helen. “Be prepared to sink or swim.”
Like her clothes and hair, she liked her sex loose and undone.
Helen was sure that the child was conceived that night, in that unprecedented place between the harshness of their words and the forgiveness of their bodies.
The beauty of their new surroundings in Idaho sustain the young couple for only a short time. Thomas soon starts escaping his duties for the solitude of fishing, and Helen begins to seek out risks and a social life that neglect her new child. Both count on their hired help Manny to pick up the slack. Manny seems a true hybrid of the character of Thomas and Helen. Unlike them, he has all the skills required to survive in this environment and recognizes more than these outsiders the need for mutual reliance among people. He is tuned both to the beauties and dangers of this world, but doesn’t romanticize man’s place in nature. These disconnected quotes capture so well the essence of his wonderful character:
As he walked, he stayed vigilant not only for the leavings of animals but for the animals themselves. Every living thing came to water. …Each copse of ocean spray and locust breathed with the respirations of sparrows. … Once, he had come upon a badger, mean-faced and hissing, having backed itself against the hillside, no clear avenue of escape. It had made short charges, as though it might win the day by way of sheer ugliness.
Manny remembered how proud his father was of the geldings. Their hair the color of buttercream, how he laughed when people expressed surprise that such large animals could be so grateful. “They don’t know how big they are,” he’d answered. “It’s the bigness of their heart that matters.”
I got some of the same pleasures from this story that I garnered from Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast” and Wecker’s “The Orchardist”. However, it didn’t have the rich drama of the former or the lyricism of the latter. I missed the collision of hippie and survivalist values that Boyle did well in his “Drop City.” There is a rural community here but despite the engaging character of the town pharmacist I wished for more of a window on small town society like Wendell Berry does so well. I was also disappointed that I didn’t really get a sense of the place as much as I hoped, the realities of homesteading and subsistence farming, the humbling of winter’s threat, the promise of renewal in spring, and the draw of fishing. That’s why I called this a parable, as the tale is stripped down to a few essential elements, ones that stick in the mind a bit like a biblical story.
Thomas is a newly-minted doctor with limited dedication to the profession and only seems to be happy when he is fishing. His young wife Helen longs to be a “free spirit” in response to the expectations of her wealthy family. They buy a farm property on a beautiful bend in the river and camp out while working to repair the terrible disrepair of the house. They hire 18 year old boy, Manny, to help, and he soon becomes an essential member of their family. Helen soon gives birth to a daughter, Elise, bringing responsibilities she is poorly equipped to handle. There is a tragedy I can’t speak of, and much of the rest of the book deals with the recovery process and the fate of Elise as the hope for the next generation.
I appreciated the author’s portrayal of a marriage founded on the partners looking unrealistically for what is missing in their own characters. Thomas is a loner, so mistrusting in others due to effectively being abandoned by his parents as a child and driven to simplify his life to a level he can control. Helen is more social and rebels against the stultifying values of her blue-blood parents. The truth that opposites attract collides with the reality that a relationship built on such a beginning needs to progress toward to middle to achieve any kind of hybrid vigor. Running away to a wilderness is tempting as a solution to life’s constraints, but such a romantic notion soon smacks against the hard realities. The following disconnected windows on the two characters reveal aspects of this set-up to the story that engaged my interests:
Thomas:
Only through living a simple life close to the earth did Tolstoy regain some sense of purpose. He gave up all his worldly possessions and took up a pauper’s existence, far better than the emotional poverty to which he’d been married.
He’s realized then that the patients were the very thing he wanted to avoid: their weeping and lament; their grimaces of agony; the awful way they took the news of their impending demise with pitiful resignation, or, worse, a cheerful nod of gratitude, as though instead of a death sentence he had just delivered them a basket of holiday fruit.
Her mercurial nature unsettled Deracotte, a state he found both uncomfortable and arousing.
He had Helen. He had this land, this place where the river ran as true as any promise he had ever known.
Helen:
More than anything, she longed for each day to be new, to surprise her with possibility.
Maybe her mother was right: maybe she did need a man to keep her in line. Always, she felt caught between the desire to act autonomously, giving no mind to her mother’s tsk-tsking tongue, and her need for affection. With Thomas she found both. There was something endearing about his overweening nature, his need to control every minute detail of her life.
“You want to have your cake and eat it too,” her mother scolded. And here was the truth of it: she had her doctor, and he was delicious.
“Water finds its own level,” she warned Helen. “Be prepared to sink or swim.”
Like her clothes and hair, she liked her sex loose and undone.
Helen was sure that the child was conceived that night, in that unprecedented place between the harshness of their words and the forgiveness of their bodies.
The beauty of their new surroundings in Idaho sustain the young couple for only a short time. Thomas soon starts escaping his duties for the solitude of fishing, and Helen begins to seek out risks and a social life that neglect her new child. Both count on their hired help Manny to pick up the slack. Manny seems a true hybrid of the character of Thomas and Helen. Unlike them, he has all the skills required to survive in this environment and recognizes more than these outsiders the need for mutual reliance among people. He is tuned both to the beauties and dangers of this world, but doesn’t romanticize man’s place in nature. These disconnected quotes capture so well the essence of his wonderful character:
As he walked, he stayed vigilant not only for the leavings of animals but for the animals themselves. Every living thing came to water. …Each copse of ocean spray and locust breathed with the respirations of sparrows. … Once, he had come upon a badger, mean-faced and hissing, having backed itself against the hillside, no clear avenue of escape. It had made short charges, as though it might win the day by way of sheer ugliness.
Manny remembered how proud his father was of the geldings. Their hair the color of buttercream, how he laughed when people expressed surprise that such large animals could be so grateful. “They don’t know how big they are,” he’d answered. “It’s the bigness of their heart that matters.”
I got some of the same pleasures from this story that I garnered from Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast” and Wecker’s “The Orchardist”. However, it didn’t have the rich drama of the former or the lyricism of the latter. I missed the collision of hippie and survivalist values that Boyle did well in his “Drop City.” There is a rural community here but despite the engaging character of the town pharmacist I wished for more of a window on small town society like Wendell Berry does so well. I was also disappointed that I didn’t really get a sense of the place as much as I hoped, the realities of homesteading and subsistence farming, the humbling of winter’s threat, the promise of renewal in spring, and the draw of fishing. That’s why I called this a parable, as the tale is stripped down to a few essential elements, ones that stick in the mind a bit like a biblical story.
July 18, 2015
A rebellious young married couple from Connecticut make the decision to buy property in Idaho and start an idealized life. Thomas, who has just finished his training as a physician in 1960, really has no desire to be a doctor and only wants to fish in the pristine streams near his Idaho property. He's a dreamer who possesses few practical life skills and is uneasy dealing with other people. Helen is a free spirit who is uninterested in the conventional life of her wealthy parents, but who finds herself ignored, pregnant, and bored living in a tent in Idaho. A handsome, wonderful teenager, Manny, helps them out on their farm and proves indispensable to the family.
The adults and the daughter Elise are all flawed characters with difficult childhoods and many challenges in their past. The family experiences a great loss, and grief colors their lives for years. This is an emotionally dark story, but it holds a ray of hope as it ends.
Kim Barnes beautifully describes a small town in Idaho where the people are often at the mercy of the forces of nature, and where isolation can drag down the spirit. Life often is not easy, but so many problems were heaped on this poor family that it started to resemble a soap opera, especially regarding Thomas. So I would give the book higher marks for the writing style than for the plot.
The adults and the daughter Elise are all flawed characters with difficult childhoods and many challenges in their past. The family experiences a great loss, and grief colors their lives for years. This is an emotionally dark story, but it holds a ray of hope as it ends.
Kim Barnes beautifully describes a small town in Idaho where the people are often at the mercy of the forces of nature, and where isolation can drag down the spirit. Life often is not easy, but so many problems were heaped on this poor family that it started to resemble a soap opera, especially regarding Thomas. So I would give the book higher marks for the writing style than for the plot.
January 15, 2012
The blurb writer did not read this book. No hope, no idealism, no luminous. No home. No country for that matter. The Idaho wilderness is the bass note humming in your ears, while every single character conducts the symphony of grief unhealed, pain itching under skin, suffering oozing, regret tasted but not swallowed, the earth itself alternately boiling mud or verdant trap. Pounding, relentless misery like having stones piled on your chest until you can't breathe. There is not even a dog grinning here, a bird chirping; anything to relieve the endless unhappiness. The ground is mud, the river a soulless monster. The relentless depressive solitude is suitable for the summer desert in Africa; the winter glacier ice in the Arctic Circle. I love the Idaho wilderness. Barnes must love it in a completely different way. The blurb writer got one word right: powerful. Powerful writing. I'll need to scrape it off my spirit.
November 30, 2008
This is the most melodramatic book I have ever read. I am mystified by all the starred reviews it's gotten. The writing was good, but the plotline was over the top and the characters' motivations were, for the most part, a mystery.
February 10, 2023
Extremely depressing, no redeeming qualities, no moral to the story. Boooooo
July 31, 2023
Survival, tragedy, and love are all part of this book. The reader starts with the young love of a recently graduated doctor and a young woman bored with her life, and enamored with the doctor. They buy a farm in Utah. I found this to be a story of three men, all from terrible childhoods, including loss of parents and abuse. The young doctor is unable to cope with tragedy, the young man that becomes handyman and keeper of the farm, loses his true love, and the third finds love, after killing his abusive father. Interesting.
March 15, 2017
I love this novel. We have five viewpoint characters, and it's from each ones point of view that they become sympathetic. Consequently you find yourself pulling for each one. Helen, Thomas, Manny, Elise, and Lucas.
Three come from broken families or no families at all. Helen, however, breaks from her privileged past to pursue her chosen path, with a man her mother cannot approve of. She and Thomas make their home in rural Idaho where he sets up a medical practice but prefers to practice fishing. Manny, a young hired hand, keeps the farm going and helps care for newborn Elise while Thomas limits his practice so he has time to fish.
Helen is enthusiastic for their rustic way of life, until Elise's birth. Then a longing overtakes Helen that she can't fulfill. Manny witnesses the tragedy that follows, the tragedy that haunts the family, affecting even Elise into her teen years.
Here is a story of weakness and strength, of loss and gain. My favorite character is Manny, whose strength keeps the family from fracturing.
Kim Barnes is a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and I can see why. Each chapter begins with a descriptive phrase, and soon you are in Idaho, hearing the river, feeling the coldness, sensing the personality of the region. Without overloading us with names of individuals, Barnes acquaints us with small-town Fife where everyone knows everyone else. If you like a novel with depth, try this one. It's great.
Three come from broken families or no families at all. Helen, however, breaks from her privileged past to pursue her chosen path, with a man her mother cannot approve of. She and Thomas make their home in rural Idaho where he sets up a medical practice but prefers to practice fishing. Manny, a young hired hand, keeps the farm going and helps care for newborn Elise while Thomas limits his practice so he has time to fish.
Helen is enthusiastic for their rustic way of life, until Elise's birth. Then a longing overtakes Helen that she can't fulfill. Manny witnesses the tragedy that follows, the tragedy that haunts the family, affecting even Elise into her teen years.
Here is a story of weakness and strength, of loss and gain. My favorite character is Manny, whose strength keeps the family from fracturing.
Kim Barnes is a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and I can see why. Each chapter begins with a descriptive phrase, and soon you are in Idaho, hearing the river, feeling the coldness, sensing the personality of the region. Without overloading us with names of individuals, Barnes acquaints us with small-town Fife where everyone knows everyone else. If you like a novel with depth, try this one. It's great.
July 15, 2009
I used to live in a town in Colorado where many hippies moved in the ’70s so they could get ‘back to the land.’ They lived in a variety of yurts, teepees, or log cabins and tried to grow all their food and can and freeze enough to make it through the year. I wasn’t that hardy. I just dabbled in making jams from the apricots and cherries that grew in orchards all around the valley. But I always enjoyed visiting my friends’ farms, and occasionally, farm sitting.
So I was intrigued by the back to the land theme of A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes. Set in the ’60s, in the small town of Fife, Idaho, this novel begins with the budding love affair of Thomas Deracotte and Helen Carmichael. They meet while they are attending Yale: he’s studying medicine, she’s an undergrad. They come from different backgrounds: she’s from an upper class Connecticut family; he was abandoned by his parents early in life, and grew up with his illiterate grandmother. They fall madly in love, defy her parents and get married.
And head West. They chose their locale carefully. A river is important as Thomas needed to fish. Cheap land is important. They find a farm in a town where a doctor is needed, and buy it sight unseen. Kind of a mistake; the buildings are unusable and they have to hire men to build the barn and house. Plus Helen gets pregnant right away and gives birth to Elise in their tent.
It doesn’t take too long for them to realize they made a big mistake. Thomas has misgivings about his fit as a doctor. It’s not the blood that makes him squeamish, but the intimate interactions with people that he can’t handle. He’s smitten by the river and spends almost all his time fishing. Helen is bored, lonely and finds she misses her old life, her friends and, surprisingly, her parents.
With Thomas at the river all the time, Manny, the hired hand, steps in as handyman, builder, farmer, and eventually, love interest for Helen. But then a tragedy ensues and we jump forward to 1976, when Elise is 16. She’s been raised almost entirely by Manny, and by her teen years has never really left the farm. She’s a talented horsewoman and one day meets Lucas at a rodeo. He draws her into his father’s fundamentalist church - her first real encounter with a loving, supportive, extended family. Until they see her flaws, and condemn her as a sinner.
Much, much more happens in this book, most of it pretty sad. But this is one of those stories where the lonely and miserable find each other and cobble together an unusual family that just might work. That starts out kind of miserable, but ends up kind of hopeful. What makes this one special, though, is Barnes’ intimacy with the Idaho landscape. You can almost hear the river whooshing by, smell the fishy, silty musk of the banks. A captivating story.
So I was intrigued by the back to the land theme of A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes. Set in the ’60s, in the small town of Fife, Idaho, this novel begins with the budding love affair of Thomas Deracotte and Helen Carmichael. They meet while they are attending Yale: he’s studying medicine, she’s an undergrad. They come from different backgrounds: she’s from an upper class Connecticut family; he was abandoned by his parents early in life, and grew up with his illiterate grandmother. They fall madly in love, defy her parents and get married.
And head West. They chose their locale carefully. A river is important as Thomas needed to fish. Cheap land is important. They find a farm in a town where a doctor is needed, and buy it sight unseen. Kind of a mistake; the buildings are unusable and they have to hire men to build the barn and house. Plus Helen gets pregnant right away and gives birth to Elise in their tent.
It doesn’t take too long for them to realize they made a big mistake. Thomas has misgivings about his fit as a doctor. It’s not the blood that makes him squeamish, but the intimate interactions with people that he can’t handle. He’s smitten by the river and spends almost all his time fishing. Helen is bored, lonely and finds she misses her old life, her friends and, surprisingly, her parents.
With Thomas at the river all the time, Manny, the hired hand, steps in as handyman, builder, farmer, and eventually, love interest for Helen. But then a tragedy ensues and we jump forward to 1976, when Elise is 16. She’s been raised almost entirely by Manny, and by her teen years has never really left the farm. She’s a talented horsewoman and one day meets Lucas at a rodeo. He draws her into his father’s fundamentalist church - her first real encounter with a loving, supportive, extended family. Until they see her flaws, and condemn her as a sinner.
Much, much more happens in this book, most of it pretty sad. But this is one of those stories where the lonely and miserable find each other and cobble together an unusual family that just might work. That starts out kind of miserable, but ends up kind of hopeful. What makes this one special, though, is Barnes’ intimacy with the Idaho landscape. You can almost hear the river whooshing by, smell the fishy, silty musk of the banks. A captivating story.
April 20, 2009
Good story and some strong characters, but Derracotte (the husband/father) dragged down the plot. Honestly, the story would have been better without him. When I finished this novel my first thought was "what a dope". No wonder his wife was unfaithful and took a horrible risk that took her life. No wonder no one wanted to see him as a doctor, he obviously didn't care about people. And no wonder his daughter was so messed up. It's a wonder why Manny stuck it out with him for 16 years. All he wanted to do was fish!
September 14, 2010
Complicated love story of two, a free spirit and one who thinks she is. Their child and her development, which was rather stunted because of where they lived and her father's lassitude. The local orphan boy who seems to know lots about everythingand actually raises Elise,acting more like a father than Thomas. "Dr" Kalinsky is an interesting character, too.Doesn't have the regular elements of a 'family'.
Unusual the way author use the opening and closing to connect all of the elements of this story.
Did enjoy
Unusual the way author use the opening and closing to connect all of the elements of this story.
Did enjoy
June 26, 2012
University of Idaho professor and author, Kim Barnes, crafts a beautiful setting for a sad, dark tale of a couple who fail to discover their idyllic life in rural Northern Idaho. Tragedy besets the characters. Three weeks after reading this novel, I've decided it did reflect real life, though not life as my poly-Anna outlook desires. I'm glad I read "A Country Called Home" and will add Barnes' most recently released novel to my reading list.
January 14, 2013
I read this book for my book club. It was an o.k. read. It switched between 4 main characters. The story moved along pretty well. There was only one protagonist that I liked, Manny. The book was pretty well written, but the ending was a little ridiculous which kind of took away a little from the good writing throughout the majority of the book. I have a pet peeve for stories that make a woman (or a man) out to be so wonderful that 2 men (or women) just can't get on with their lives.
January 21, 2009
Incredible read. It was quick but very intense. Both sad and uplifting at the same time. I am anxious to read more of Kim Barnes books. She is also a local, she teaches at U of I and lives on Moscow Mountain.
August 21, 2021
CW: sex act
This book is split into multiple parts that go back and forth over decades. It's multiple POVs in third person, sometimes changing every few pages, somethings every few paragraphs. Part I is 182 pages long in the ebook I read, and is completely pointless. The story doesn't begin until page 183, which is Part II. The author does an excellent job distilling the information of the previous 182 pages into just a few. The few pages and sprinkles of paragraphs are spread neatly. It's like the author and editor realized the first 182 pages weren't needed, but forgot to remove them. I resent that my time was wasted; I'd been hoping for a story sooner than that.
Deracotte is utterly useless as a character and reinforces my belief that the story doesn't begin until Part II. In Part I, he moves out to a frontier with his young wife who is from old money. Neither can do chores, but Helen learns: to cook. split logs, plant food--farm and homestead things. Deracotte does not. He never even tries. He doesn't even want to be a physician, for which he has training, and wants to be a pharmacist. He takes no steps to change his career, though. He is MISERABLE, but WON'T MOVE HOME. His wife's death makes everything worse. All he does in response is fish and get hooked on drugs, and forget his daughter exists. Manny is a young farmhand who does all Deracotte's chores for him, cares for his daughter from her infant years to teens, and later, has raised her all his own. WHAT A WASTE OF PAGES. HAVE MANNY BE THE STEPDAD, AND BOTH BIO-PARENTS DIE SOONER. That's clearly what the book was angling for. It was just too afraid to name it. Rrgh! The daughter, named Elise, has maternal grandparents who try to get custody of her. Somehow, this was successfully fought and I was furious. Manny was in over his head. The grandparents, from a financial perspective alone, would have more resources for caretaking. It would especially have made for a more interesting story!
Instead, Elise's latest love interest comes to town. He's a preacher's kid. That can't be easy. He...gets Elise to convert to a form of Christianity that involves immersion baptisms, speaking in tongues, fainting, and dancing; all after attending six sermons. Here, it's revealed she has synesthesia. I was -delighted- to find this was a book I'd been looking for, and remembered the ending and laughed Worth it to sit through such a boring, wasteful book: turns out I'd been looking for it for two separate reasons, for awhile now. When I first read this, it was utterly forgettable except for the synesthesia as a subplot, and another incident. The preacher's wife is understandably disgusted and furious with Elise for giving her son a blowjob while the preacher and his wife are maybe four feet away. This happens at the end of chapter fourteen. Elise's synesthesia happens in chapter fifteen. By chapter sixteen, Elise is in an inaccurate mental hospital with over-the-top mental patients. Luke shows up and I wondered, irritably and disgusted, if Elise was going to give him a public blowjob too. No, but he sticks his arms in the water while she bathes and they have sex on the floor. She gets pregnant.
For a book that portrayed eating disorders and mental hospitals respectfully and accurately, I recommend "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher. This book's epilogue didn't feel like one; it felt like a chapter transition. I was glad it was finally over.
This book is split into multiple parts that go back and forth over decades. It's multiple POVs in third person, sometimes changing every few pages, somethings every few paragraphs. Part I is 182 pages long in the ebook I read, and is completely pointless. The story doesn't begin until page 183, which is Part II. The author does an excellent job distilling the information of the previous 182 pages into just a few. The few pages and sprinkles of paragraphs are spread neatly. It's like the author and editor realized the first 182 pages weren't needed, but forgot to remove them. I resent that my time was wasted; I'd been hoping for a story sooner than that.
Deracotte is utterly useless as a character and reinforces my belief that the story doesn't begin until Part II. In Part I, he moves out to a frontier with his young wife who is from old money. Neither can do chores, but Helen learns: to cook. split logs, plant food--farm and homestead things. Deracotte does not. He never even tries. He doesn't even want to be a physician, for which he has training, and wants to be a pharmacist. He takes no steps to change his career, though. He is MISERABLE, but WON'T MOVE HOME. His wife's death makes everything worse. All he does in response is fish and get hooked on drugs, and forget his daughter exists. Manny is a young farmhand who does all Deracotte's chores for him, cares for his daughter from her infant years to teens, and later, has raised her all his own. WHAT A WASTE OF PAGES. HAVE MANNY BE THE STEPDAD, AND BOTH BIO-PARENTS DIE SOONER. That's clearly what the book was angling for. It was just too afraid to name it. Rrgh! The daughter, named Elise, has maternal grandparents who try to get custody of her. Somehow, this was successfully fought and I was furious. Manny was in over his head. The grandparents, from a financial perspective alone, would have more resources for caretaking. It would especially have made for a more interesting story!
Instead, Elise's latest love interest comes to town. He's a preacher's kid. That can't be easy. He...gets Elise to convert to a form of Christianity that involves immersion baptisms, speaking in tongues, fainting, and dancing; all after attending six sermons. Here, it's revealed she has synesthesia. I was -delighted- to find this was a book I'd been looking for, and remembered the ending and laughed Worth it to sit through such a boring, wasteful book: turns out I'd been looking for it for two separate reasons, for awhile now. When I first read this, it was utterly forgettable except for the synesthesia as a subplot, and another incident. The preacher's wife is understandably disgusted and furious with Elise for giving her son a blowjob while the preacher and his wife are maybe four feet away. This happens at the end of chapter fourteen. Elise's synesthesia happens in chapter fifteen. By chapter sixteen, Elise is in an inaccurate mental hospital with over-the-top mental patients. Luke shows up and I wondered, irritably and disgusted, if Elise was going to give him a public blowjob too. No, but he sticks his arms in the water while she bathes and they have sex on the floor. She gets pregnant.
For a book that portrayed eating disorders and mental hospitals respectfully and accurately, I recommend "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher. This book's epilogue didn't feel like one; it felt like a chapter transition. I was glad it was finally over.
March 12, 2018
It was a decent enough read that I was invested in seeing how it ended. But there were issues. Deracotte's character was the weakest. He wanted to get back to nature and live off the land but was very ill-prepared for actually doing that. He put his wife and unborn child in danger in doing so. He had no idea how to even use basic tools like saws and hammers and relied on the local handymen to help build his barn and house. For someone who was supposed to be smart enough to be a doctor, that was sure stupid of him. He drifted aimlessly through the story and had no real presence..he was rather tepid on being a doctor and wound up becoming an addict once his wife died because he couldn't cope.
Helen's character was a little more defined and would've actually been the more interesting character to keep throughout the story's arc instead of Deracotte. She followed him into the back-to-nature life because it was so different from her own upbringing, but then got swiftly disenfranchised with it when she found how isolated she was from the outside world. She connects better to Manny, the kid Deracotte hires to help out around the farm. Her restlessness was palpable and so was her unhappiness.
Elise was...interesting. After her mother's death, the story shifts to her teenaged years (she's a baby when her mom dies). Her father homeschools her, isolating her like he did Helen. She gets involved in a Pentecostal church and at that point in the story, it gets weird. She suddenly develops this eating disorder because the church members tell her she needs to fast the Devil out of her (she thinks she's got the Devil in her because she sees colors when she hears music). The intro of the disorder might've worked if there'd been actual groundwork laid to bring it in, but instead it's like "oh by the way, she's in the local psych hospital because she suddenly developed anorexia from some comments some church people said to her." That aspect of the story just didn't ring right to me, it felt forced and contrived. And while in the psych hospital, Elise meets Lucas and without revealing spoilers, the ending for them was also contrived.
Manny was probably the strongest character outside of Helen. He had the tragic childhood but didn't seem to dwell on it. He wasn't afraid to step in and take charge when needed. He had his scars but didn't let them define him.
The writing itself was okay. Good use of description, although at times it wandered into purple prose territory. The pacing was also okay, although I do think more groundwork should've been laid for the eating disorder angle.
Helen's character was a little more defined and would've actually been the more interesting character to keep throughout the story's arc instead of Deracotte. She followed him into the back-to-nature life because it was so different from her own upbringing, but then got swiftly disenfranchised with it when she found how isolated she was from the outside world. She connects better to Manny, the kid Deracotte hires to help out around the farm. Her restlessness was palpable and so was her unhappiness.
Elise was...interesting. After her mother's death, the story shifts to her teenaged years (she's a baby when her mom dies). Her father homeschools her, isolating her like he did Helen. She gets involved in a Pentecostal church and at that point in the story, it gets weird. She suddenly develops this eating disorder because the church members tell her she needs to fast the Devil out of her (she thinks she's got the Devil in her because she sees colors when she hears music). The intro of the disorder might've worked if there'd been actual groundwork laid to bring it in, but instead it's like "oh by the way, she's in the local psych hospital because she suddenly developed anorexia from some comments some church people said to her." That aspect of the story just didn't ring right to me, it felt forced and contrived. And while in the psych hospital, Elise meets Lucas and without revealing spoilers, the ending for them was also contrived.
Manny was probably the strongest character outside of Helen. He had the tragic childhood but didn't seem to dwell on it. He wasn't afraid to step in and take charge when needed. He had his scars but didn't let them define him.
The writing itself was okay. Good use of description, although at times it wandered into purple prose territory. The pacing was also okay, although I do think more groundwork should've been laid for the eating disorder angle.
April 4, 2021
Fife is a small town in Idaho, far from everywhere else. Despite, or because of, its remoteness people from elsewhere move there to escape their pasts and start over. In 1960 Thomas Deracotte, a newly-minted M.D., and his wife Helen arrive from Connecticut. He is leaving his impoverished upbringing (college and med school scholarship student) and she is leaving her wealthy, privileged suburban family (who disapprove of her husband and the move). Their plan is that he will practice medicine on the side while they reclaim a long-abandoned farmstead. They soon learn that they are totally inept at rural life. Coming to their aid are Manny, a young jack-of-all-trades, and Dr. K, the town pharmacist who dispenses everyday medical and psychological advice. Shortly after Helen gives birth to Elise she dies tragically. The consequences of her death affect Thomas, Manny, Dr. K, and Elise as each of their stories spins out over the next 15 years. There are many "never-saw-this-coming" turns that make this a memorable novel.
August 3, 2024
There is some lovely writing here. It is an easy read—entertaining, sympathetic characters (though a little two-dimensional), and just enough conflict, challenge, and mystery to keep the plot moving.
There is no requirement for personal investment in the story, which works well for me at the moment. Each character has experienced significant trauma before the main action of the story, but somehow these histories are merely narratives rather than part of what makes the characters who they are. So, a lot of pathos without any connection. I frequently forgot which trauma linked up to each character.
It was a nice and tidy ending with all of our main characters having an opportunity to heal through one fantastic moment of togetherness. Very Dickensian with all the loose ends neatly tied up and everyone getting what they deserve. And since everyone has a heart of gold…
There is no requirement for personal investment in the story, which works well for me at the moment. Each character has experienced significant trauma before the main action of the story, but somehow these histories are merely narratives rather than part of what makes the characters who they are. So, a lot of pathos without any connection. I frequently forgot which trauma linked up to each character.
It was a nice and tidy ending with all of our main characters having an opportunity to heal through one fantastic moment of togetherness. Very Dickensian with all the loose ends neatly tied up and everyone getting what they deserve. And since everyone has a heart of gold…
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2020
Although very depressing, this is an emotional book of disfunctional people trying to eek out life in the wildness of the mountainness and river country of Idaho--a place I, also, call home. There is something about the peacefulness of a river and wildlife around that brings one closer to the edge of one's soul. It calls us when times are tough, as so with this book. Rich girl marries a young Doctor, just starting out, and they have a tough time of it, but with advantages few people get. There support of a pharmacist in a small town, and a young man looking for a job. Food is a nourishing t...
February 16, 2018
Not really a romance nor a mystery yet it has elements of both. A different look on relationships between close friends and family members. There is a difference in interpersonal contact in small towns versus metropolitan living. Well worth reading.
August 28, 2021
Beautifully written, but mostly unremarkable and sometimes disturbingly shocking in that unrealistic way that feels like it only happens in novels rather than real life.
Also this author clearly does not like pentecostal Christianity, seems like most of her books become a non constructive polemic.
Also this author clearly does not like pentecostal Christianity, seems like most of her books become a non constructive polemic.
November 17, 2025
Idaho -- The story of a young couple who moves to a rural town in Idaho. Tragedy struck early in the book and the rest of the book is about grieving and how they try to move on. There were several unneeded spicy love scenes that ruined the book for me.
August 24, 2017
spotted on the shelf at my library while teaching yoga. It may end up my #1 choice for 2017... I need to explore more of this author's work.
August 2, 2018
This started with an unusual cadence to the writing....then, just got darker and sadder. A whole lot of dysfunctional characters.....
September 5, 2018
Very Wallace Stegner.
Read
October 2, 2019excellent
February 14, 2021
Sad sad sad
July 8, 2012
It isn't easy for an author to make me cry even once, but Kim Barnes as done it again in this book from 2008. In 1960, fresh out of medical school, Thomas Delacotte takes his wife and love of his life, Helen to a hardscrabble property he has bought sight unseen in Idaho. Inspired by Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, he envisions a simple life away from the pressures of Connecticut and his wife's wealthy family where he can spend what turns out to be most of his time fishing, hunting for wild greens and watching the wildlife. (I read those stories as a pre-teen and young teen, but they didn't give me those same romantic notions at ALL!) They move outside a small Idaho town that needs a doctor. He reluctantly sets up practice, but, in reality, he was never meant to be a doctor. He apparently really doesn't know what he wants it seems other than Helen and a dream. When Helen gives birth to their daughter, tragedy follows. She is attracted to their hired man, a rather well-worn story. Elise grows up with a biological father who is distant and has become a drug addict. Her real father is Manny, the hired man, who has loved her mother forever. As I read this, I found Delacotte to be a character who was impossible to like. Despite loving his wife, he distances himself from her. He refuses to embrace the people of the small town who are willing to embrace him. They need a doctor, yet he can't be bothered. Plus he is negligent - both of his patients and his family. The New York Times book review I read, talks about the myth of self reliance and the need for community. Delacotte rejects that idea completely, refusing to allow his daughter the community she craves until it is almost too late for her. Luckily, she has Manny as her real father who guides her with love and compassion in memory of her mother. Human beings need and crave the community of others. It's what we are.
July 23, 2010
It's nearly ridiculous, how good Kim Barnes' work is. I mean, you read her nonfiction, which is nothing short of amazing, and you think, "There's no way her fiction could even come close."
Then it does... what a gifted writer.
From the moment I read the short prologue — which reads more like prose poetry — I knew I was going to love this book. Barnes writes beautifully, both about people and her beloved Idaho wilderness, without being overly sentimental or flowery. Her words have a rugged quality to them. I usually get quite impatient with long descriptions of nature, but they were written so well, so intentionally, that I found myself savoring them.
Thematically, much of the book seems to focus on what happens when we can't move beyond our weaknesses, our grief, or even our selfishness toward the people we most care for — and the family created in that void as a result... a family of our own choosing. Her characters, especially Delacotte, Helen, and Manny, are complex and messy, capable of great kindness and great destructiveness. They're fascinating and heartbreaking.
The book has kept humming in my brain since I turned the last page, and that, to me, is a sign of good fiction.
Then it does... what a gifted writer.
From the moment I read the short prologue — which reads more like prose poetry — I knew I was going to love this book. Barnes writes beautifully, both about people and her beloved Idaho wilderness, without being overly sentimental or flowery. Her words have a rugged quality to them. I usually get quite impatient with long descriptions of nature, but they were written so well, so intentionally, that I found myself savoring them.
Thematically, much of the book seems to focus on what happens when we can't move beyond our weaknesses, our grief, or even our selfishness toward the people we most care for — and the family created in that void as a result... a family of our own choosing. Her characters, especially Delacotte, Helen, and Manny, are complex and messy, capable of great kindness and great destructiveness. They're fascinating and heartbreaking.
The book has kept humming in my brain since I turned the last page, and that, to me, is a sign of good fiction.
July 6, 2010
Again, wishing for an "I loved it" star. But this time I went up instead of down. The lyricism certainly was not lacking. Nothing lacking. Great story--I couldn't put it down. I guess there was just a lot that was pretty similar to In the Wilderness. And why not? Same geography, some of the same time periods covered. The fishing, the religion--all well portrayed, but very clear when you've read someone's memoir just what parts are autobiographical. And man alive, too much smoking. I mean, I don't have any problem with it, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that everyone in the book constantly smoked or thought about smoking or tried to hide that they were smoking. Like every page! It was tiresome is all.
But I digress. Great book, everyone should read it except people who are offended by sex scenes. Hard to say more about the book without giving things away, and you'll want to discover these on your own.
But I digress. Great book, everyone should read it except people who are offended by sex scenes. Hard to say more about the book without giving things away, and you'll want to discover these on your own.
June 26, 2009
This somewhat difficult-to-read novel was a very sad story, but beautifully rendered. Loving writing about Idaho...its wilderness and one of its small town.
I just finished this book. You know when I sit down mid-day and read it is a book I like! Although "like" may not be the correct word for such a sad and dark story. And gritty would be another good descriptor.
I had put off finishing the book until late afternoon because I was afraid of how it was going to end. But the author managed a sensitive and meaningful ending --- without neatly tying up all the ends into a package. We feel the characters' sorrows but do not wallow in them.
My only complaint is that the characters could have been more well-developed - I did not really feel that I "knew" them or their motivations...except that all were searching.
I just finished this book. You know when I sit down mid-day and read it is a book I like! Although "like" may not be the correct word for such a sad and dark story. And gritty would be another good descriptor.
I had put off finishing the book until late afternoon because I was afraid of how it was going to end. But the author managed a sensitive and meaningful ending --- without neatly tying up all the ends into a package. We feel the characters' sorrows but do not wallow in them.
My only complaint is that the characters could have been more well-developed - I did not really feel that I "knew" them or their motivations...except that all were searching.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews