In the wilderness : coming of age in unknown country

by Kim Barnes

Hardcover, 1996

Status

Available

Genres

Biography & Memoir

Biography

Collection

John Marshall Collection

Publication

New York : Doubleday, 1996.

Description

Poet Kim Barnes grew up in northern Idaho, in the isolated camps where her father worked as a logger and her mother made a modest but comfortable home for her husband and two children. Their lives were short on material wealth, but long on the riches of family and friendship, and the great sheltering power of the wilderness. But in the mid-1960's, as automation and a declining economy drove more and more loggers out of the wilderness and into despair, Kim's father dug in and determined to stay. It was then the family turned fervently toward Pentecostalism. It was then things changed. In the Wilderness is the poet's own account of a journey toward adulthood against an interior landscape every bit as awesome, as beautiful, and as fraught with hidden peril as the great forest itself. It is a story of how both faith and geography can shape the heart and soul, and of the uncharted territory we all must enter to face our demons. Above all, it is the clear-eyed and moving account of a young woman's coming of terms with her family, her homeland, her spirituality, and herself. In presenting Kim Barnes the 1995 PENJerard Fund Award for a work-in-progress by an emerging female writer, the panel of judges wrote that "In the Wilderness is far more than a personal memoir," adding that it stands "almost as a cautionary example of the power of good prose to distinguish whatever it touches." Indeed, In the Wilderness is an extraordinary work, courageous, candid, and exquisitely written.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Brandie

Very interesting book to read. For as different as our lives are/were, and the experiences she had that I never had, I got it and I can say we had many shared feelings, we just got them in different ways!

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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace

In the Wilderness is Kim Barnes's ode to her childhood. Within its pages she gives reason to what made her experiences growing up so different from yours or mine. Deep in the logging camps of Idaho Barnes is confronted with parents who sign on to a religion movement with such fervor that it feels

like an overnight shift in ideals. Indeed, Barnes can remember her mother's pierced ears - here today, gone tomorrow.
Kim Barnes writes with the fluidity of water. Her words flow and paint a seamless picture. In In the Wilderness Barnes was able to portray her family and home life without compromise. She didn't shy away from revealing short-comings and failures. She didn't try to gloss over the hardness of her upbringing or surroundings. At the same time, despite the difficulties, the love and respect she has for her childhood is abundantly clear. Another aspect of the memoir that struck a chord was the naked truth about sex and the realities of coming of age. Barnes addresses her first preteen crush as openly as discussing what she wore to school. It is stark and unflinching. In some places I am reminded of Ariel Moore (do you remember her? She was a Reverend's daughter from the movie 'Footloose' in 1984).

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LibraryThing member TheLoisLevel

There is something peaceful about this book as it chronicles a girls life with her family, first in the woods with logging companies and later as she rebels against her family and Pentecostal faith. Well written and thoughtful.

LibraryThing member maggie1944

Kim Barnes grew up in a part of Idaho within a short drive of the part of Idaho where I spent my summers. The Idaho she knew was of the loggers, and the rivers, and hunting in the woods, small towns, and fundamental Christian churches. My Idaho was only in the summers, and was hot and dry, and

filled with wheat fields, and barley fields, and hay fields and cattle, chicken, pigs, and long long days. I loved my Idaho and continue to love the great outdoors because of those summers. Kim Barnes loved her Idaho with a passion, too, her forests, deer, fish, creeks, rivers, and long cold winters. She did know a different Idaho but she expresses her love for country so clearly and with such luminous language that I am grabbed by the heart, and grieve with her for our loss of the great wild west. The forests are not the same with so much clear cutting, the rivers are not the same due to dams to give us electricity, and the prairies are not the same as they are farmed by corporations, not families.

I felt a deep sadness for my lost childhood, and hers.

Her books are more than that, too, as she goes into depth about her family's participation in a fundamental Christian church, and her experiences as a child and teenager. I do not share this with her and I feel she was abused by this church, and her father's unwavering commitment to his version of the Christian bible, where women are told to follow their men, and submit with no talking. Women find their glory, according to this view, by submitting to their husband's leadership, no matter how misguided.

I don't want to make this review a review of my thought about all that. I'll just say that Kim Barnes does a remarkable job of describing her upbringing and her path out of there.

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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

A donation to my OBCZ that I chose to try to read because I'm curious about people who choose to be fundamentalist Christians. I did get some insight about that. Some of the language, especially after the first third which too much like a recitation of the begats, was lovely.

However, the only

reason I finished it was because I was trying to read myself to sleep, and this was boring enough that I thought it would work. Unfortunately, not quite, I did manage to finish in one night. But that's due more to irregular hormonal activity than to the book.

Also be aware the 'yuck factor' is significant. It's a true story, and Kim survived, and the scenes weren't drawn out in gory detail - but, yeah, I wish I'd been warned.

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