I will never be Frida Kahlo .. but a girl can dream
April 10, 2012 11:08 AM   Subscribe

In my fantasy life, I move to a remote area of the United States (like somewhere in New Mexico), buy a small home with a garden for tomatoes and herbs, wear long dresses, buy a faithful dog for a companion, write novels and take gorgeous, brooding young men for lovers. Please recommend to me some books with characters (real or fictional) who have lived this life.
posted by nubianinthedesert to Media & Arts (11 answers total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Pam Houston's work, both memoir and fiction, touches on these themes. Leslie Marmon Silko's recent memoir The Turquoise Ledge talks about a life lived in this vein.

Mabel Dodge Luhan was the OG of this lifestyle in the 1920s-1950s. Her work is of its time in its style, with lots of purple prose, but. There was a good bio written of her in the 1970s by Emily Hahn.

There are lots of bios of Georgia O'Keeffe; I like Portrait of an Artist by Laurie Lisle a bit more than the Roxana Robinson Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:17 AM on April 10, 2012


Best answer: Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. A woman moves back to her small desert hometown in Arizona and takes up with a gorgeous brooding lover. Lots of nice details about the landscape and culture.
posted by Laura Macbeth at 11:20 AM on April 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver. It's been a while since I read it but I think it fits many of your requirements, and I remember enjoying it.
posted by bunderful at 11:22 AM on April 10, 2012


I think the actress from Love Story is also living this life- not sure if she has a bio out there.
posted by bquarters at 12:29 PM on April 10, 2012


Response by poster: Just put "Animal Dreams" on hold at the local library and will pick up "Turqoise Ledge" on Amazon. Thank you ... and please keep them coming!
posted by nubianinthedesert at 12:56 PM on April 10, 2012


Haven't read it, but "The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels--A Love Story" might fit the bill.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:09 PM on April 10, 2012


This also made me think of Julia Cameron - it's been a while since I've read The Artist's Way, but I recall her talking about moving from NYC to move to New Mexico and wrote while looking at the mountains. And with dogs!
posted by Neely O'Hara at 1:28 PM on April 10, 2012


Your Aunt Diane
posted by dhammond at 2:26 PM on April 10, 2012


Response by poster: Now that I think about it, I think I meant Georgia and not Frida. Not quite sure how I made that mistake.
posted by nubianinthedesert at 3:03 PM on April 10, 2012


Haven't read it, but "The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels--A Love Story" might fit the bill.

I have read it, and it doesn't really. She marries a guy with a giant ranching business and moves to the small town where his family is like the local Rockefellers, has some number of kids, and tries (and succeeds fairly well) to build herself into a brand a la Martha Stewart. I am not so much a fan of her or her writing, but that's actually orthogonal to why I wouldn't suggest it for nubianinthedesert.
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:54 PM on April 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


My hero actually does this, but she lives in NYC in midtown, and you know, has to work, and I'm not so sure about the tomatoes, but she gets wined and dined by young men, and writes novels. Sometimes fictional characters sneak into real life, to keep us on our toes.
posted by Augenblick at 4:15 AM on April 11, 2012


« Older How to keep skirts from "walking up" tights when...   |   Help me fix my experimental setup! Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.