From Our House

by Lee Martin

A touching memoir of family, faith, and forgiveness explores the American father/son relationship through the eyes of an awkward boy who is living in the embittered shadow of a father hobbled by a farming accident. Reprint.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Family, Coming Of Age

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Lee Martin is the author of the novels, The Bright Forever, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; River of Heaven; Quakertown; Break the Skin; Yours, Jean; The Glassmaker's Wife; and the soon-to-be-released, The Evening Shades. He has also published four memoirs, From Our House, Turning Bones, Such a Life, and Gone the Hard Road. His first book was the short story collection, The Least You Need To Know, and he recently published another, The Mutual UFO Netwlrk. He is the co-editor of Passing the Word: Writers on Their Mentors. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper's, Ms., Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and Glimmer Train. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. He teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University, where he was the winner of the 2006 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Reviews

[Richard Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished reading this memoir for the third time and am embarked on my fourth. It concerns Lee Martin's growing up with a maimed, rageful farmer father and a meek schoolteacher mother who was helpless in the face of her husband’s abuse.

Written with great tenderness and love for both his parents, From Our House astonishes me with its graceful prose, its evocative scenes, its easygoing but compelling narrative force, its poignant story.

Martin is a master at slipping into the action his older and wiser reflective self. Thus we get both the sensitive, troubled boy’s experience and the viewpoint of the sadder, wiser adult he became. The boy’s life and the man’s reflection convey exactly how enduring pain, regret, and anger—helplessly entwined with love—can ripple forever inside those from dysfunctional families.

But in the end, this memoir portrays a transformation that gives you great hope.

I am a student of the memoir genre and the author of one. This book is an all-time top five. My full review is on my web site:

http://richardgilbert.me/wounded-fami...

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because he has a new one published which is Memoir Part 2. I was hooked from page one. Lee Martin is one of those few midwest authors that speak directly to me. Typically I find that midwest authors don't like to be placed into such a category, but I can't help knowing that some of my favourite books are written by midwest authors. Mr. Martin writes of an only child born to older parents on a farm. A farming accident of his father's, changes the man, and their family forever. Outstanding writing has me crying, and wanting to rescue a cowering little boy. Can't wait now to read his Memoir part 2.

[Sheri Fresonke Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touching tale of a family growing up in a farming community and their move into the city. A tale of a father's rage after a tragic accident and the weight of it borne by son and wife culminating in forgiveness. Well told.

[Koren · Rating 5 out of 5]

What would it be like to live with a father who lost both hands in a farm accident when you were a baby and has huge anger management issues as a result? That is the story of the author growing up in the 50's and 60's as an only child with parents who had him later in life. His mother is a kind, warm person, which I think helps him stay sane. Even though his father is abusive and they had a very volatile relationship when he was a teenager, you can feel the love he has for his parents. It would be hard to imagine having to bathe, dress, and feed your father, especially when angry at him. The story is told through the eyes of the adult Lee, which I think worked well. This is a quick read at only 193 pages, but I would have liked it to go on longer.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended by one of my new favorite authors, Kent Haruf. Bonus: part of it takes place in my hometown! Oak Forest, IL.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having spent time with Lee recently at Vermont College of Fine Arts postgrad writing conference, I could hear his voice as I read his first memoir.

[Zane Hesting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the biggest thing I liked about this book is that it never tries to be overly lyrical or ornamental with its language. It sticks to its psychological examination of a boy's relationship to his parents, especially his father. The key images in this book are truly from the three houses the narrator lived in growing up, and within the homes we get a complex and oftentimes haunting look at a family who has been dealt some bad luck and doesn't know how to reconcile their troubles. The father lost his hands in a tragic farming accident the year the narrator is born and this drives the whole narrative. We are left to contemplate and wonder if our character is shaped more by our bodies than we think, and whether love, communication, affluence, faith, location, or time are the most important healers in our lives. The main theme in the book is shame and the mapping of its roots within the family unit. I have yet to read a book set in Illinois that I haven't enjoyed, and it's weird because I don't particularly like that state.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Our House: A Memoir was a lovely and well written story. You could feel Lee Martin's gentleness throughout the story. You'll (at least I did) find yourself wanting him to be his friend and I was glad he was apart of my life for the few days it took me to read it. Mind you, he didn't have a happy upbringing. His father was a farmer and he lost both his hands in a farming accident the year Lee was born. As a result, of losing his hands, he became a hard and bitter man. He took his anger out on Lee with meanness and beatings. His mother was a schoolteacher. She was a meek and a tender mother and woman.

The ending surprised me. I did not see it coming.

I completed this story 10 days ago.

[Esme · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just my kind of memoir, slim, haunting ruminations on family and tragedy and the how and why of how people choose to live their lives. I've had this book sitting in my "to be read" library for a shamefully long time and the pandemic and a closed library convinced me to give it a shot. Also the events described happened not too far from where I live so I know the towns he writes of as well as the landscape. Reminiscent of William Maxwell's "So Long, See You Tomorrow."

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin, in March. Only to realize he grew up around Sumner, Illinois and wrote a memoir about that. That same town is where my husband grew up-a town nobody visits unless you have family there. I really enjoyed reading all he wrote-he writes really well.

[Valeria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir discusses the author’s childhood and young adulthood growing up with a father scarred by tragedy and the consequences it had on his family life. A raw and emotional and honest narrative.

[Christina Neely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written interesting book.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

To write like this....

[Ariana Pedigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The courage it took to write this memoir, I cannot begin to imagine.
I met Mr. Lee Martin the first year I volunteered for the Southern Kentucky Book Fest, I was scared to death being surrounded by so many published authors and I was just beginning on that journey. I don't remember what I said first, though I do remember that I felt horribly nervous meeting a "published author"! But Mr. Lee Martin will make anyone feel incredibly special! He has a wonderful, funny sense of humor, and really makes your writing sound important and extraordinary.
This year I was humbled by Mr. Martin giving me a copy of his memoir...
I don't believe I set the book down, (memoirs I realized, are very personal things and it takes more than courage to publish the good times as well as the bad in your life). I won't ever view Mr. Lee Martin as the person I once did, I see a true and brave man who was able to put even his most embarrassing moments onto paper. While his memoir is so intriguing,one will stop and marvel at the beautiful writing. Mr. Lee Martin is exceptional in the way he can breathe life into words on a page. I didn't read this book, I saw it. Mr. Lee Martin has a witty sense of humor and can paint the blank pages of a book like a painter paints a canvas.
It is both a heartbreaking and uplifting memoir, that shows the deepest fears,secrets and loves which make up all families.
I suppose one of my favorite parts had to be in the second chapter, "A group of older boys had told me Santa Claus was in the woods. He was riding a motorcycle, they said. He had an axe, they said. He was chopping off little kids' heads. I tried to tell my mother all of this, but I only blubbered and bawled."
I have no idea why, but this struck my funny bone. Mr. Lee Martin can write the fears, dreams, wishes, and happiness of his childhood so realistically you'll wonder how you've never read this book before.
"From Our House" is an artistically written memoir of Mr. Lee Martin's life. Beginning with the event which changed the lives of the entire Martin family, forever. When Mr. Roy Martin loses both his hands in an corn shucking box, the lives in the Martin homestead change dramatically, and the bitterness of losing his hands plagues the house like a vile smoke. All the way to the very end of the novel, your heart will be torn in a duel between pity, anger and bittersweet tenderness. This memoir shows, that God has a plan for everyone even those who seem to have fallen hopelessly into the belief that He has given them more than their share of misfortunes.
The ending is miraculously beautiful, a perfect conclusion for Mr. Lee Martin's memoir which is sure to please any reader.

[Emily Rosenbaum · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What I wanted more than anything was for him to acknowledge his part in the mistakes we had made. Not once, after all the times he had whipped me, after all the screaming, cursing fights, had he told me he was sorry. Always, I was the one who eventually apologized for my behavior” (155). So Lee Martin writes about his father here in his memoir From Our House. The book is an honest yet oddly gentle uncovering of a childhood marked by violence and anger.
Martin’s father lost both his hands in a farming accident when Lee was a young child. “I know that all our lives began to curve and change that day in the cornfield when the shucking box on the picker clogged, and my father tried to clear it without first shutting off the tractor,” Martin exlains (1). Martin’s father’s stumps were fitted with metal hooks as prosthetics, and he continued to do all the farm work.
Martin posits that his father became angry after the accident, and at moments through the book, he supplies another image of his father – the happy, loving man he imagines he might have been before. Perhaps young Martin needed that imaginary father to cling to in the moments when he heard the belt coming off, but it’s also part of Martin’s ability to avoid casting his father as villain. His mother is the saint in the story, no doubt – a patient, religious woman who spends a lot of time seeing the best in the husband and son who fight all the time. Yet, his father is not the devil, not in the way Martin tells the story.
Instead, Martin allows himself to portray his father as a whole human being. He does this by refusing to let himself off the hook. Just as he always apologized to his father as a young person, in the text he shoulders a good hunk of the responsibility for their tumultuous relationship. On the one hand, I have a hard time seeing him assign blame to his younger self for reacting as he did to a father who exerted such cruel power over him. But on the other hand, there’s something incredibly evolved about a person who can say It’s not just the other person’s fault. He writes it not to be a martyr, but rather with sadness that he and his father could never have a good relationship, due to the forces life exerted on them.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee Martin's father lost both of his arms in a farming accident the year that Lee was born. Martin delves into his relationship with both of his parents and his memoir reveals some interesting observations not only of his parents' behavior, particularly his father's rage, but his own as well. Although the subject matter was at times quite heavy, Martin shied away from being over-indulgent and stayed true to his voice in his prose.

[Thomas DeWolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When my parents found out that my mother was pregnant with me, the first thing my father said to the doctor was, 'can you get rid of it?'"

That would be a difficult bit of knowledge to possess as a child. I liked this book, though I ache from the abuse of children.

"Time has a way of healing our wounds, or at least scabbing them over."

Yeah, scabbing them over is right because wounds are not healed by time.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written, touching account of the difficult relationship between a man and his father, whose longtime rage has driven a spike between then, and his mother, whose gentleness and optimism hold the family together. It's often a painful story, but Martin's skill at recreating the scenes of his childhood while reflecting on their larger meaning makes it an absorbing read.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lee Martin writes his story of growing up in the late 50s-early 60s to parents much older. They live in farm country, Illinois and his dad well liked by everyone but his son losses both hands in a freak farm machinery accident. Okay/good read.

[Denny Koll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written biography but not a lot of depth. Quick read.

[April Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

About a guy with a seriously deranged, hook-armed father.