Extremely isolated America
July 20, 2017 7:43 AM Subscribe
I've read and watched Misery recently and I'm fascinated by the depiction of secluded, extremely rural living, in that case the mountains of Colorado. I would love to read some first-hand accounts of life in similar places in the USA, fiction or non-fiction.
BTW, I am very much not suggesting that rural people are like Annie Wilkes, it's just what prompted the question! Thanks.
BTW, I am very much not suggesting that rural people are like Annie Wilkes, it's just what prompted the question! Thanks.
"The Egg and I" (1945) by Betty MacDonald is an older work that details the secluded rural life. (Of its time; heads-up for racism/sterotyping stuff.)
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:18 AM on July 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:18 AM on July 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece is about a woman who went to Alaska in 1904 as a sort of missionary. So it's got annoying clueless colonialism (but surprisingly not as racist as you'd think) about Native/Indigenous people but there are also a LOT of interesting slice of life stories about what it was like there then. The classic book is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men which is a story about isolated rural sharecroppers in Alabama and the fairly terrible conditions they endured because of what amounted to institutionalized poverty. You can read the sequel to it And Their Children After Them to see what changed and what did not. Both books changed my life.
posted by jessamyn at 8:47 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 8:47 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also older: We Took to the Woods, by Louise Dickinson Rich.
posted by JanetLand at 8:52 AM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 8:52 AM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
These two are sort-of what you're looking for:
"The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof."
"Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere"
posted by akk2014 at 8:54 AM on July 20, 2017
"The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof."
"Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere"
posted by akk2014 at 8:54 AM on July 20, 2017
Oh, and for Christmas you should get yourself a copy of Rockwell Kent's A Northern Christmas. Short but lovely.
posted by JanetLand at 8:55 AM on July 20, 2017
posted by JanetLand at 8:55 AM on July 20, 2017
You might be interested in some of the work put out by Foxfire, which works to document and preserve Appalachian heritage. I had the first two Foxfire anthologies as a kid and while they are set out as "how tos," they are a fascinating look at what life is like for rural farmers who had to be almost entirely self-sufficient.
posted by muddgirl at 9:12 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by muddgirl at 9:12 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's a short novel, but I think Go With Me has elements of that.
posted by gudrun at 9:23 AM on July 20, 2017
posted by gudrun at 9:23 AM on July 20, 2017
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx should hit the spot.
posted by ball00000ns at 9:46 AM on July 20, 2017
posted by ball00000ns at 9:46 AM on July 20, 2017
Off Course by Michelle Huneven is about a woman writing an economics dissertation in a cabin in the Sierras. It's about as action-packed as it sounds, but it really grew on me.
posted by BibiRose at 10:31 AM on July 20, 2017
posted by BibiRose at 10:31 AM on July 20, 2017
I just read the first half of In the Land of the Grasshopper Song, written by two women who lived among tribal communities in Northern California in 1908. They actually seemed to have quite a social life with the people who lived along the rivers; they taught some basic school subjects and did a bit of first aid-type medicine, and so they weren't isolated from other people - but that part of the country took a long time to reach on horseback, and they were certainly a long way from large towns.
posted by kristi at 10:47 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by kristi at 10:47 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh and read everything by and about Richard Proenneke also in Alaska. His journals are super readable. (and sorry I misread your question, Let us Now Praise Famous Men is not first-hand)
posted by jessamyn at 11:12 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 11:12 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
You might also like the works of Anne LaBastille.
posted by JanetLand at 11:17 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by JanetLand at 11:17 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I really enjoyed Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt.
Amazon blurb:
Born into a third generation of Montana homesteaders, Judy Blunt learned early how to “rope and ride and jockey a John Deere,” but also to “bake bread and can vegetables and reserve my opinion when the men were talking.” The lessons carried her through thirty-six-hour blizzards, devastating prairie fires and a period of extreme isolation that once threatened the life of her infant daughter. But though she strengthened her survival skills in what was—and is—essentially a man’s world, Blunt’s story is ultimately that of a woman who must redefine herself in order to stay in the place she loves.
Breaking Clean is at once informed by the myths of the West and powerful enough to break them down. Against formidable odds, Blunt has found a voice original enough to be called classic.
posted by likeso at 1:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Amazon blurb:
Born into a third generation of Montana homesteaders, Judy Blunt learned early how to “rope and ride and jockey a John Deere,” but also to “bake bread and can vegetables and reserve my opinion when the men were talking.” The lessons carried her through thirty-six-hour blizzards, devastating prairie fires and a period of extreme isolation that once threatened the life of her infant daughter. But though she strengthened her survival skills in what was—and is—essentially a man’s world, Blunt’s story is ultimately that of a woman who must redefine herself in order to stay in the place she loves.
Breaking Clean is at once informed by the myths of the West and powerful enough to break them down. Against formidable odds, Blunt has found a voice original enough to be called classic.
posted by likeso at 1:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed this episode of the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast: 241. Living and Writing in Alaska, and Making Your Own Fun: An Interview with Cathy Pegau. Pegau and SB Carrie trade stories about living in different small Alaska towns, and they recommend the book "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska" as accurate.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by oh yeah! at 7:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
MonkeyToes: "The Egg and I" (1945) by Betty MacDonald is an older work that details the secluded rural life. (Of its time; heads-up for racism/sterotyping stuff.)
I have nothing to add to this thread except to say that I have always wondered about Egg and I road, which one drives past when driving to Port Townsend, WA. And now I know! Turns out it was the site of the MacDonald farm and was renamed in honor of the book.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I have nothing to add to this thread except to say that I have always wondered about Egg and I road, which one drives past when driving to Port Townsend, WA. And now I know! Turns out it was the site of the MacDonald farm and was renamed in honor of the book.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:01 PM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Going south rather than west, have you read any Faulkner? You might start with As I Lay Dying.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:17 AM on July 21, 2017
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:17 AM on July 21, 2017
I loved the Foxfire books, but they've been tainted for me now that I know that the author abused the children involved in the production of the books.
The Last American Man is excellent.
On the Rez by Ian Frazier is the story of life on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I found it very compelling. He has another book, Great Plains, which also talks about life in rural America.
The one that is right up your alley is The Final Frontiersman, a book about Heimo Korth and his family who live alone in the Alaska Wilderness. I've loaned this book out several times and everyone seems to find it eerie and fascinating. Heimo Korth and his family are the only human residents of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has to rely on bush pilots to get him to civilization.
posted by Ostara at 9:37 AM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Last American Man is excellent.
On the Rez by Ian Frazier is the story of life on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I found it very compelling. He has another book, Great Plains, which also talks about life in rural America.
The one that is right up your alley is The Final Frontiersman, a book about Heimo Korth and his family who live alone in the Alaska Wilderness. I've loaned this book out several times and everyone seems to find it eerie and fascinating. Heimo Korth and his family are the only human residents of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has to rely on bush pilots to get him to civilization.
posted by Ostara at 9:37 AM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rtha at 7:53 AM on July 20, 2017