Barn Gothic: three generations and the death of the family dairy farm by Ryan Dennis
Ryan Dennis grew up on a dairy farm in New York. He watched both his grandfather and his father work harder and harder to make a living. When he was younger, he assumed he would take over his grandfather's farm. But after college, he wasn't sure and his grandfather ended up selling his farm. A few years later, his father was crushed by a skid steer while farming and almost died. His accident and recovery spelled the death of his farm as well. Dennis covers a lot of the evils of industrial agriculture and how the "go big or go home" industrial ag mentality put a lot of small farms out of business. But, in his family's case, his grandfather had a pretty big hand in destroying both family farms. Dennis's grandfather fell in 2001 and hit his head on a concrete floor, possibly causing a brain injury. There was a LOT of speculation about how much this brain injury changed his grandfather's personality and drive. But, there were also a LOT of decisions his grandfather made well before that can't be blamed on that injury. I knew this wouldn't be a happy book. But, without giving too much away, I did NOT see his grandfather's hand in the destruction of their family farms coming. To make the whole thing even worse, Dennis's dad seemed like such a great guy who continued to think his own dad was looking out for him, when all along he wasn't. I think the saddest thing about this book is seeing all these adults just ruin their lives instead of actually communicating. This wasn't a story of a family farm being lost to industrial agriculture. This was the story of an extremely dysfunctional family who were equally destroyed by farming and their patriarch.
Some quotes I liked:
"...in 1977, author Wendell Berry debated Nixon's secretary of agriculture, Earl Butz, at Manchester College in Indiana. Berry advocated for better farming over bigger agriculture, suggesting that smaller farms created cultural and social capital within a community. In contrast, Butz declared: 'Adapt of die.' The seventies were good for crop farmers and they heeded Butz's call to expand, only to charge headfirst into the farm crisis of the eighties. By the end of the decade, one-third of the farms held two-thirds of the nation's debt. The number of suicides marked the consequences of following Butz's advice." (p. 41)
"Every morning, we had drawn a pitcher of milk from our bulk tank and drank it like water. During the day, the cream shifted towards the top of the container and left rings on the plastic after each cup was poured. However, as my mother explained, we had brought cows into the herd that we didn't know. While our original cows didn't have Johne's, a condition that leads to Crohn's disease in humans, we couldn't be sure of the new cows. Our milk pitcher got stacked in the back of the cupboard. The fact that a farmer could be divested from the things he made was an uneasy omen." (p. 46)
"It is not the simple nature of economics because economics is not nature, but a game mankind made up with his own rules. If there is anything natural about farm economics, we would have recognized the cost of agribusiness and large farming on our environment, rural communities, and our understanding of ourselves. Through the years, many people have shrugged their shoulders and said that they hate to see small farmers go out of business, but that's just how the world works. However, that is not true. Instead, the world was working just fine before farming got big." (p. 167)
Some quotes I liked:
"...in 1977, author Wendell Berry debated Nixon's secretary of agriculture, Earl Butz, at Manchester College in Indiana. Berry advocated for better farming over bigger agriculture, suggesting that smaller farms created cultural and social capital within a community. In contrast, Butz declared: 'Adapt of die.' The seventies were good for crop farmers and they heeded Butz's call to expand, only to charge headfirst into the farm crisis of the eighties. By the end of the decade, one-third of the farms held two-thirds of the nation's debt. The number of suicides marked the consequences of following Butz's advice." (p. 41)
"Every morning, we had drawn a pitcher of milk from our bulk tank and drank it like water. During the day, the cream shifted towards the top of the container and left rings on the plastic after each cup was poured. However, as my mother explained, we had brought cows into the herd that we didn't know. While our original cows didn't have Johne's, a condition that leads to Crohn's disease in humans, we couldn't be sure of the new cows. Our milk pitcher got stacked in the back of the cupboard. The fact that a farmer could be divested from the things he made was an uneasy omen." (p. 46)
"It is not the simple nature of economics because economics is not nature, but a game mankind made up with his own rules. If there is anything natural about farm economics, we would have recognized the cost of agribusiness and large farming on our environment, rural communities, and our understanding of ourselves. Through the years, many people have shrugged their shoulders and said that they hate to see small farmers go out of business, but that's just how the world works. However, that is not true. Instead, the world was working just fine before farming got big." (p. 167)
A Hymn to Life: shame has to change sides by Gisele Pelicot
Gisèle Pelicot came to international attention when her husband was arrested and accused of drugging her and raping her and also inviting at least 51 other men to do the same. In France, victims of crimes like this can keep their trial behind closed doors so that the whole world doesn't know all the details of what happened to them. But, Gisèle decided that shame has to change sides and made her trial public - so the media knew the name of every man who participated in raping her while she was drugged. The worst time of her life turned her into a feminist icon. She not only survived the worst time of her life, but actually thrived afterward. Even though she didn't remember any of the rapes, she had to watch every video and see every photograph in preparing for the trials. In A Hymn to Life, Gisèle shares her story - not just the story everyone has read about - but her life growing up and what her marriage was like, or what her side of it was like. She does recognize some red flags in hind sight, but she and her husband married very young and things that seemed odd or out of place didn't outweigh the good things in their relationship to her. Gisèle is really an amazing woman. Not that she didn't suffer and grieve, but her inner strength and inner optimist pulled her through. Amazingly, she even started a new romantic relationship. She decided that the worst things to happen to her would not define her. This is not an easy read, but in the same vein of Know My Name by Chanel Miller, it's definitely worth reading.
Some quotes I liked:
"So many strangers had shown me such kindness, made me feel welcome when I had nothing left. I wasn't scared of being seen now, of people knowing. Shame has to change sides. The words I'd first heard over a decade ago, a slogan supporting women who had survived rape and domestic violence, came into my head like a refrain, as if tiny blades were honing my thoughts. Everyone needs to see the faces of the fifty-one rapists. They should be the ones to hang their heads in shame, not me." (p. 191)
"I can't remember the day I first heard the applause as I walked into the Palais de Justice. I realised that the people around me, mostly women, were forming a guard of honour, something I had never imagined or expected. I could feel the warmth of their bodies, the emotion and vulnerability melding with mine...How could I tell the women waiting to thank me for my courage - when I had no claim to any such thing - that their presence outside the courtroom eased for me what was happening inside, that the long-buried stories they came to lay on the steps were the best possible response to the denial and bravado of the men flexing their muscles inside? I stopped wearing a mask after the first few days, took off my sunglasses to make eye contact, and smiled to let them know I felt less alone with them there." (p. 206 & 208)
Some quotes I liked:
"So many strangers had shown me such kindness, made me feel welcome when I had nothing left. I wasn't scared of being seen now, of people knowing. Shame has to change sides. The words I'd first heard over a decade ago, a slogan supporting women who had survived rape and domestic violence, came into my head like a refrain, as if tiny blades were honing my thoughts. Everyone needs to see the faces of the fifty-one rapists. They should be the ones to hang their heads in shame, not me." (p. 191)
"I can't remember the day I first heard the applause as I walked into the Palais de Justice. I realised that the people around me, mostly women, were forming a guard of honour, something I had never imagined or expected. I could feel the warmth of their bodies, the emotion and vulnerability melding with mine...How could I tell the women waiting to thank me for my courage - when I had no claim to any such thing - that their presence outside the courtroom eased for me what was happening inside, that the long-buried stories they came to lay on the steps were the best possible response to the denial and bravado of the men flexing their muscles inside? I stopped wearing a mask after the first few days, took off my sunglasses to make eye contact, and smiled to let them know I felt less alone with them there." (p. 206 & 208)
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (re-read, Evening Edition book club)
Damon Fields was born to a teenage mother who grew up in foster care and was an alcoholic. His father died before he was born and his mother struggled with both her sobriety and finding a decent paying job. Damon's father was of Melungeon heritage, and Damon inherited his bright red hair and darker complexion - it also earned him the nickname Demon Copperhead. Things are fine for Demon growing up even though they are poor until his mother meets Stoner when he's 10. Stoner isn't wild about dealing with Demon and after an altercation at home Demon ends up in foster care. While in his second foster home, Demon's mom dies of an overdose - one of the first wave of oxy deaths in their area. He eventually connects with his paternal grandmother who helps find him a more suitable home. But when Damon is fifteen he is injured playing football and prescribed opioid painkillers. Even taking them as prescribed he's hooked by the time the prescriptions run out. Luckily for him there are any number of ways to keep accessing pills. After more heartache and death than the average 80 year old sees in their lifetime, Damon starts to dig his way out of addiction in his late teens/early 20's. What the future holds is anyone's guess, but by the end of the book Demon's story has taken a hopeful turn for a change.
Barbara Kingsolver's retelling of David Copperfield by way of Appalachia and the opioid epidemic is brilliant. I can't think of a better written character than Demon. Literally every other page is such a brilliant line from Demon that if you marked them all the whole book would be marked up. In her book Unsheltered, I felt like Kingsolver was VERY heavy handed with her message. This is the opposite. Through Demon you see the struggles of rural, poor Appalachia, but you also see the warmth, resilience, and pride of the people of this region. She also does a great job of showing how areas like this were targeted by Perdue Pharma and how Appalachia became the first wave of the opioid tsunami. I read a LOT and this is one of the best books I've ever read. Demon and the other characters here will stay with me for a long time.
Just a couple extra great quotes:
"I had to do the harder English, which was a time suck, reading books. Some of them though, I finished without meaning to...Likewise the Charles Dickens one, seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat's ass. You'd think he was from around here." (p. 374)
"I made him a miner, with a pick, overalls, the hard hat with the light on the front. I gave him a red bandanna like the old badass strikers that had their war. No cape, he doesn't fly, just super strong and fast, running over the mountaintops in leaps and bounds. This guy is old-school...I named my strip Red Neck. Signed, Anonymous." (p. 419)
"Is it the hardest thing I've ever done? No. Just the hardest one I had any choice about." (p. 509)
"Everything I looked at made my eyes water. It felt like being in love with somebody that's married. I could never have this. Staying here, alone and sober, was beyond my powers. And I still wanted it with all my hungry parts." (p. 530)
Update on re-reading August 2026: I enjoyed the book just as much if not more reading it a second time. This time because I knew what was going to happen, I was able to enjoy the writing even more. It was harder to read the parts of Demon's early foster care situations this time because you knew it was just going to keep getting worse and he's so young. I still loved the book and love the character of Demon. I'm glad my other book club decided to read this so I had a reason to re-read it.
Some additional quotes I loved this time:
"But sixth grade had tricked me out as a new Demon. I was still me but with sixty-dollar shoes, so. A loser in disguise. Living with Coach was like packing heat. I walked down the hall and the crowd parted. Not like pee-yew, I smell foster-boy ass, but like, Wow. There he goes." (p. 227)
"I told Angus my mom being dead wasn't something I pinned exactly on my birthday. 'It's more like this bag of gravel I'm hauling around every day of the year. If somebody else brings it up, honestly, I'm glad of it. Like just for that minute they can help me drag the gravel.'" (p. 246)
"What I said before about having some golden time of life where it's all good, your people have got your back, and you don't notice? That's how the cruel world bites you. I have bad days galore to look back on, the shamings and hard fists, and I'll tell you what. It's the golden times that kill me. I had two. And like a son of bitch, I missed them both." (p. 254)
"If wishes were horses, like they say. We'd all have different shit to shovel." (p. 473)
"Hammer and Maggot waded ahead of me with sturdy strides, or they balanced and hopped from rock to rock, and it choked me up to watch them use their bodies that way, without a thought. Something I'd probably lost for good." (p. 482)
"They wanted payback. I thought about what Rose said, wanting to see the rest of us hurt, because she was hurting. You have to wonder how much of the whole world's running is fueled by that very fire." (p. 496)
"I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people." (p. 519)
Barbara Kingsolver's retelling of David Copperfield by way of Appalachia and the opioid epidemic is brilliant. I can't think of a better written character than Demon. Literally every other page is such a brilliant line from Demon that if you marked them all the whole book would be marked up. In her book Unsheltered, I felt like Kingsolver was VERY heavy handed with her message. This is the opposite. Through Demon you see the struggles of rural, poor Appalachia, but you also see the warmth, resilience, and pride of the people of this region. She also does a great job of showing how areas like this were targeted by Perdue Pharma and how Appalachia became the first wave of the opioid tsunami. I read a LOT and this is one of the best books I've ever read. Demon and the other characters here will stay with me for a long time.
Just a couple extra great quotes:
"I had to do the harder English, which was a time suck, reading books. Some of them though, I finished without meaning to...Likewise the Charles Dickens one, seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat's ass. You'd think he was from around here." (p. 374)
"I made him a miner, with a pick, overalls, the hard hat with the light on the front. I gave him a red bandanna like the old badass strikers that had their war. No cape, he doesn't fly, just super strong and fast, running over the mountaintops in leaps and bounds. This guy is old-school...I named my strip Red Neck. Signed, Anonymous." (p. 419)
"Is it the hardest thing I've ever done? No. Just the hardest one I had any choice about." (p. 509)
"Everything I looked at made my eyes water. It felt like being in love with somebody that's married. I could never have this. Staying here, alone and sober, was beyond my powers. And I still wanted it with all my hungry parts." (p. 530)
Update on re-reading August 2026: I enjoyed the book just as much if not more reading it a second time. This time because I knew what was going to happen, I was able to enjoy the writing even more. It was harder to read the parts of Demon's early foster care situations this time because you knew it was just going to keep getting worse and he's so young. I still loved the book and love the character of Demon. I'm glad my other book club decided to read this so I had a reason to re-read it.
Some additional quotes I loved this time:
"But sixth grade had tricked me out as a new Demon. I was still me but with sixty-dollar shoes, so. A loser in disguise. Living with Coach was like packing heat. I walked down the hall and the crowd parted. Not like pee-yew, I smell foster-boy ass, but like, Wow. There he goes." (p. 227)
"I told Angus my mom being dead wasn't something I pinned exactly on my birthday. 'It's more like this bag of gravel I'm hauling around every day of the year. If somebody else brings it up, honestly, I'm glad of it. Like just for that minute they can help me drag the gravel.'" (p. 246)
"What I said before about having some golden time of life where it's all good, your people have got your back, and you don't notice? That's how the cruel world bites you. I have bad days galore to look back on, the shamings and hard fists, and I'll tell you what. It's the golden times that kill me. I had two. And like a son of bitch, I missed them both." (p. 254)
"If wishes were horses, like they say. We'd all have different shit to shovel." (p. 473)
"Hammer and Maggot waded ahead of me with sturdy strides, or they balanced and hopped from rock to rock, and it choked me up to watch them use their bodies that way, without a thought. Something I'd probably lost for good." (p. 482)
"They wanted payback. I thought about what Rose said, wanting to see the rest of us hurt, because she was hurting. You have to wonder how much of the whole world's running is fueled by that very fire." (p. 496)
"I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people." (p. 519)
Dead Bees Still Sting: tales of life at the edge of nature by Susan Cormier
Susan Cormier keeps bees and this book is a collection of essays/writing on keeping bees and interactions she has with other wildlife around her home. A few of the essays were good and she is a good writer. But I needed more information on her - she never says where she lives or other details about her property (Canada was mentioned but no details on where in Canada). She mentions multiple times about how once she and her husband leave this property it will just be razed and scraped, but she never says why she thinks that. There is NO ONE who would want to buy their property and also keep bees or other animals? There was an undertone of negativity about the future of their property. There was also a VERY long chapter about keeping quail which was interesting until rats starting killing their quail and they trapped the rats and relocated them. Come on. That is ridiculous. Rats are smart so they are hard to trap or kill - I know from personal experience but in my case 2 black snakes took care of our rat problem for us. But relocating them - get serious. The last essay was also VERY odd about a prince and princess (I'm assuming it was her and her husband) and the princess is in a car accident and injured - it was very out there and did not fit with the rest of the essays in the book at all. The writing was good and I did enjoy the few essays about bees/beekeeping, otherwise I would have rated it a 1 star.
A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Books & Banter book club)
Maurice and Maralyn are an odd couple. He is nine years older and a confirmed awkward loner. She is the life of the party but is kept on a tight leash by her parents even when she's an adult. But when they meet it's an instant connection. Other people might not understand what Maralyn sees in Maurice, but they are happy and in love. After they've been married a few years, they decide to sell their house and build a boat and live on the boat full time, traveling the world. They set sail in June of 1972 and all is well for almost a year. They sail all over, meet other sailers and make lots of friends. They love the freedom of the open ocean. But in March of 1973 a whale hits their boat and it sinks. They have enough time to grab as many essentials as they can before the ship sinks. Then it's the two of them with an inflatable dingy and life raft and the supplies they managed to grab. Immediately, Maurice is despondent and often thinks of possible ways to commit suicide if they aren't rescued. Maralyn is sure every day that today is the day they will be rescued. Their marriage is tested beyond measure during the time they are shipwrecked.
The parts about building the ship and their time at sea (before and after the ship sinks) are compelling. You aren't sure if they will both survive and how long it will take for them to be rescued. After they are rescued, that section is really interesting too. But, the end is a let down. The author skips over the end of their second sailing adventure - what happened after that trip? Why did they sell the boat and move back to land? etc. And also the last section focuses so much on how awful Maurice is without Maralyn to balance him out. Not that the author should paint him better than he was, but it made the end of the book a real let down. I feel like there could have been a better way to end their story and there was a lot that wasn't covered that would have been more interesting than how miserable Maurice was at the end of his life.
Some quotes I liked:
"Once they'd returned to their blanket, Suh watched the woman pat dry her hair, a practised gesture she must have performed a thousand times in the comfort of a bedroom. She crawled over to their heap of things and dug out a comb. Sitting close to the man, she started combing his hair, then stroked his cheek. The crew fell quiet. Suh felt a pain in this chest, which he decided was heartache. Perhaps it was the years away from home, the years without touch or intimacy, the sight of a wife's kindness, a small but deliberate act of care. He hadn't seen or felt anything like it for so long. It must have been this tenderness, he thought, that had kept them alive." (p. 143)
"Maurice felt like a veteran from a long and distant war returning home to find people concerned with the minor preoccupations of their own lives and the wedding day of a princess. What would she wear? He'd known what it was to live at the edge of death." (p. 181)
"Maralyn, meanwhile, was consumed by their plans. No one seemed to understand their desire to return to the sea, and people often asked why they didn't buy a house instead. 'If your house burnt down, you'd build another house,' Maralyn would reply. 'But my home had sunk, so I'm going to build another home.'" (p. 181)
"Maurice wasn't quite able to grasp that it wasn't the voyage itself that had made their last book an attractive commercial proposition, but its failure. No one would have suggested they write a book of their travels if they'd arrived safely in New Zealand. No one wants to read the story of an adventure going right." (p. 188)
The parts about building the ship and their time at sea (before and after the ship sinks) are compelling. You aren't sure if they will both survive and how long it will take for them to be rescued. After they are rescued, that section is really interesting too. But, the end is a let down. The author skips over the end of their second sailing adventure - what happened after that trip? Why did they sell the boat and move back to land? etc. And also the last section focuses so much on how awful Maurice is without Maralyn to balance him out. Not that the author should paint him better than he was, but it made the end of the book a real let down. I feel like there could have been a better way to end their story and there was a lot that wasn't covered that would have been more interesting than how miserable Maurice was at the end of his life.
Some quotes I liked:
"Once they'd returned to their blanket, Suh watched the woman pat dry her hair, a practised gesture she must have performed a thousand times in the comfort of a bedroom. She crawled over to their heap of things and dug out a comb. Sitting close to the man, she started combing his hair, then stroked his cheek. The crew fell quiet. Suh felt a pain in this chest, which he decided was heartache. Perhaps it was the years away from home, the years without touch or intimacy, the sight of a wife's kindness, a small but deliberate act of care. He hadn't seen or felt anything like it for so long. It must have been this tenderness, he thought, that had kept them alive." (p. 143)
"Maurice felt like a veteran from a long and distant war returning home to find people concerned with the minor preoccupations of their own lives and the wedding day of a princess. What would she wear? He'd known what it was to live at the edge of death." (p. 181)
"Maralyn, meanwhile, was consumed by their plans. No one seemed to understand their desire to return to the sea, and people often asked why they didn't buy a house instead. 'If your house burnt down, you'd build another house,' Maralyn would reply. 'But my home had sunk, so I'm going to build another home.'" (p. 181)
"Maurice wasn't quite able to grasp that it wasn't the voyage itself that had made their last book an attractive commercial proposition, but its failure. No one would have suggested they write a book of their travels if they'd arrived safely in New Zealand. No one wants to read the story of an adventure going right." (p. 188)
