Leaving the Land: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A sad but convincing portrait
Review: "Leaving the Land" by Douglas Unger is a sad book. It doesn't make you laugh much and it has few moments of inspiration. But it is nonetheless an entrancing and all-too-real portrait of the untidy death of a way of life in America. The book focuses on a farming community in South Dakota that is falling victim to changing economics and technological progress in the mid-20th century. As the farmers are forced to sell out and move on, the small town they revolve around begins to die, too. The story focuses on the farmer's daughter, Marge, who, as a young woman, has dreams of something better than herding turkeys all day long, but mistakenly links her happiness to finding a man. This proves to be a big mistake, of course, and she ends up hanging on in the small dying town. Midway through "Leaving the Land," the narrator changes to Marge's son, who recounts the town's demise and his mother's and his travails. Anyone who has enjoyed Kent Haruf's celebrated "Plainsong" will find "Leaving the Land" a worthy read. "Plainsong" is a tad better, primarily because of its comic sensibilities, but they are companion novels in the way they profile a dying way of life in the Great Plains. Like Haruf, Unger is an authoritative voice. It's clear that he personally has experienced many of the things that happen in the book, from working on a farm to experiencing the death of a community.

Rating:
Summary: A sad but convincing portrait
Review: "Leaving the Land" by Douglas Unger is a sad book. It doesn't make you laugh much and it has few moments of inspiration. But it is nonetheless an entrancing and all-too-real portrait of the untidy death of a way of life in America. The book focuses on a farming community in South Dakota that is falling victim to changing economics and technological progress in the mid-20th century. As the farmers are forced to sell out and move on, the small town they revolve around begins to die, too. The story focuses on the farmer's daughter, Marge, who, as a young woman, has dreams of something better than herding turkeys all day long, but mistakenly links her happiness to finding a man. This proves to be a big mistake, of course, and she ends up hanging on in the small dying town. Midway through "Leaving the Land," the narrator changes to Marge's son, who recounts the town's demise and his mother's and his travails. Anyone who has enjoyed Kent Haruf's celebrated "Plainsong" will find "Leaving the Land" a worthy read. "Plainsong" is a tad better, primarily because of its comic sensibilities, but they are companion novels in the way they profile a dying way of life in the Great Plains. Like Haruf, Unger is an authoritative voice. It's clear that he personally has experienced many of the things that happen in the book, from working on a farm to experiencing the death of a community.