Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully written memoir
Review: This is one of those books that took me quite a long time (a week) to finish, and I finally realized it was because I didn't want it to end. Ms. Blunt writes about a childhood in the west in the style of Ivan Doig--one can feel the empty expansiveness of the land, the no-nonense people who live there, the sense of community, the difficult life. Her writing is beautiful--she relates sad incidences of life as well as some that made me laugh aloud. However, I agree with other reviews for this book: because Ms. Blunt was so honest and forthcoming in so many areas (some very personal) of her life, I found it frustrating when she didn't go ahead and write about the actual break with her husband. So many questions: what made her decide to go to the University of Montana? How did she actually accomplish the split? And how did her children react and adjust to the move?
I don't want this minor point to deter anyone from reading this great story. This is indeed a book to grab and close the door, curl up in a chair, and just enjoy the beauty of the words and images they conjure. The higest praise from me for an author is to finish a book and immediately search for another one he/she wrote. I will do that with Ms. Blunt.
Rating:
Summary: Breaking Clean
Review: This stunningly written memoir hasn't yet made the stir I expect it will, perhaps because it will be the sort of book that gets passed around from friend to friend until word of mouth increases its fame to the boiling point. It's a magnificent tale, not just of living in an isolated part of the country where the sixties were hard to tell from the thirties, but because of the way Blunt deals with one of the most difficult aspects of rural living, that being how we come to slaughter the very wild (and domestic)creatures we come to love. The brutatilty and wonder of ranch life is conveyed here without any excess of sentimentality. Judy Blunt's a true treasure.
Rating:
Summary: An Especially Compelling Memoir
Review: Those familiar with the writings of James Joyce already know that suffocation is one of his dominant themes, especially in The Dubliners and even more specifically in "The Dead," one of the short stories included in that volume. I was reminded of that theme as I read Judy Blunt's memoir. (I suggest no other comparisons of her work with Joyce's.) Both writers have a great deal of value to say about those who live lives of "quiet desperation." In this book, Blunt speaks eloquently and sometimes with humor as she brilliantly describes her first 30 years in northeastern Montana, a period during which she worked on her family's ranch, graduated from high school, married, and gave birth to three children. For various reasons she shares in her book, Blunt eventually decided to leave her husband as well as a lifestyle which had by then become unendurable. During succeeding years, she began to organize and record her thoughts about life on a ranch for her and for the other women she knew. It is important to keep in mind that this is a memoir: It provides Blunt's observations and conclusions and from her own point of view. Presumably not everyone who knew her then agrees with everything she has to say. Indeed, some may view this book as an indictment of the culture in which she lived, worked, struggled, and suffered throughout much of her life. (No doubt her former husband and father-in-law do.) For men as well as women, there was (and is) always so much to do to maintain a ranch. Prolonged periods of isolation within a human community whose population was diminishing. Harsh winters. Droughts. For women, contrary to the national average, a much briefer life span than for men because of inadequate healthcare and death in childbirth, with wives meanwhile required to maintain a workload (in addition to homemaking) which most men would find daunting. Also noteworthy: according to Blunt, women in this culture are wholly subservient to men in terms of any decisions concerning family members, the home, or the ranching business. In a word women were "powerless." It was from such a life that Blunt fled, making as clean a break as she could. Born and raised in Chicago, and having since lived in several other major cities, I am unable to identify with the way of life Blunt describes. However, over the years, I have frequently encountered men as well as women who also felt trapped in their lives. (Some described themselves as "prisoners.") They expressed feelings of being overworked as well as under appreciated, and (yes) powerless to seek a better life elsewhere. I am certain they and countless others can identify with the experiences Blunt shares in her book. It took courage for her to break away. To her credit, she did. Although it may not have been Blunt's intention, perhaps (just perhaps) her book will help others to find the courage they also need to replace a life of "quiet desperation" with one which offers social freedom and personal fulfillment.
Rating: 
Summary: Breaking Clean
Review: Well written and evocative. The author skillfully presents her painfully constraining environment and why she ultimately rejected her traditional Montana prairie role. The important thing, however, is that she did it without simultaneously trashing those who elected to accept that circumstance. Her mother, for example, is portrayed as a strong, competent, loving parent who chose to live within the system. The author in no way condemns her mother or others like her, she simply and effectively focuses the reader on why she chooses another path. There are lessons for all of us in this book, and they are well worth the learning.
Rating:
Summary: Coming Clean
Review: What strikes me about this book more than anything else is the bone deep, rock hard grit of it. The truth of what Blunt lived and managed to distill a sense of self from is told so starkly, so cleanly and without melodrama, that it is at once absolutely believable and fundamentally shocking. Set in western Montana, where Blunt's parents and their ancestors have somehow managed to wrench a living out of a land that is both inordinately harsh and unforgiving, Breaking Clean tells of the birth and upbringing of a small child called Judy and her 4 siblings. The rules of her childhood home are many and inflexible. The rules are there for a reason - without them, people die. Punishment for breaking the rules is immediate, swift and harsh. There is no time to acknowledge or assuage the hurts of childhood, no tolerance for stepping out of line or wanting something other than what is expected of you. And so Judy and her siblings grow up cut off from some of the deeper, feeling parts of themselves, which in her case take more than 30 years to surface. As hard as this book is to read at times, it is also worth every cringe, every slap in the face and tear you'll shed, because by the end you realize there is cause to celebrate. The struggle to survive has shaped Blunt into a writer with depth, courage and clarity. This book is a reminder that even the most painful experiences can be transformed by the power of words. Don't miss this book.
Rating:
Summary: Unflinching memoir of early marriage, hard life, courage
Review: When Judy Blunt was only 15 she entered the only world she would imagine for herself - that of a farm wife (as her mother and grandmother had done before her). The memoir she wrote after finally breaking free of this life is not sentimental and doesn't ask for pity from the reader. It was the only life she'd known and plenty of people lived this way in Montana, expecting a rough life and bearing up to the hardships that came their way.
But what Blunt does, as few writers can, is open her eyes and really look fully at the world, coming up with vivid, original descriptions of the animals, the land, the people around her. Those familiar with farm life may find their eyes reopened by Blunt's writing and those unfamiliar with it will simply love discovering this book.
But I warn you - it isn't an easy read. There are plenty of farm accidents, bitter weather and descriptions of a community filled with people who don't have time for softness. They're too busy trying to get through each day and simply survive. What is amazing is that one person, Blunt herself, not only survived but ended up being an amazing writer, bringing alive the world she lived in.
|
