OK, TLT Book Clubbers (and other interested readers) – grab your glass of wine (or cup of coffee, depending on the hour), pull up a comfy chair and let’s talk about the first of our two summer reads, Kristin Kimball’s The Dirty Life.
I’ll start off by mentioning that earlier this year I wrote a feature article for a glossy woman’s magazine about the sacrifice I made by abandoning my beloved New York City for my husband’s home town of Houston. Although that move was difficult for me, having now read about the dramatic, whole-life upheaval Kristin Kimball underwent after meeting her husband Mark, I have to admit that leaving the nation’s largest city to go to its fourth largest doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. 🙂
To recap the book: Kimball, a freelance travel writer, meets Mark after driving six hours from her New York City studio apartment to interview him for an article on organic farming. They soon become romantically involved and Mark convinces Kimball to start a farm with him in upstate New York, one which he hopes will produce all the food that families participating in their CSA would need in a year: milk, meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables, maple syrup, cheese and more. Mark is a highly principled (and at times maddening) person who tries as much as possible to avoid the never-ending cycle of consumption and waste that is modern American life. He’s never owned a car, television or radio, he loathes plastic, he wants to use horses instead of tractors on the farm, and, at the time Kimball meets him, he’s keeping a big ball of his own used dental floss in case it might be useful someday. (!) Kimball’s relationship with Mark is a “fiery” one, and the book documents the tumultuous year between their first meeting and their eventual marriage, while also chronicling Kimball’s transformation from East Village denizen to rural, organic farmer.
Kimball is a solidly good writer and I was gripped (and sometimes repelled) by her vivid descriptions of the everyday realities of farming life. (I won’t soon forget, for example, her graphic recounting of the birth of a calf.) Sure, I might buy my produce from a farmers’ market and even cultivate a relationship with the people behind the table, but that’s a far cry from really understanding the commitment and back-breaking labor that goes into producing the food we eat. Short of actually living and working on a farm, reading The Dirty Life is next best method to open the eyes of the complacent, clueless urbanite.
Kimball is also a candid memoirist and she doesn’t flinch in her self-examination. Here, for example, she berates herself for having been an intellectual snob in her prior life:
I had come to the farm with the unarticulated belief that concrete things were for dumb people and abstract things were for smart people. I thought the physical world – the trades – was the place you ended up if you weren’t bright or ambitious enough to handle a white collar job. Did I really think that a person with a genius for fixing engines, or for building, or for husbanding cows, was less brilliant than a person who writes ad copy or interprets the law? Apparently I did . . . .
The book has laugh-out-loud moments, like the disastrous first meeting between Kimball’s and Mark’s parents, or her lame attempt to build a pig-run under the amused eyes of a more experienced farmer. But The Dirty Life can also be quite touching, even heart-breaking, and there are passages that are downright lyrical, especially in the book’s lovely epilogue. Ultimately, it was Kimball’s musings about human relationships, as much as about farm life, that stayed with me after I’d finished the book. Here, for example, is Kimball on the eve of her wedding:
I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go through with it. What if everything that my mother was saying with her facial expressions was right? What was I signing up for? Poverty, unmitigated hard work, and a man whom, for all his good points, no reasonable person would describe as easy to be with. There was something else, too, and I don’t know why nobody talks about it. Marriage asks you to let go a big chunk of who you were before, and that loss must be grieved. A choice for something and someone is a choice against absolutely everything else, and that’s one big fat good-bye.
But maybe precisely because of that woman’s magazine article I’d written (which was about how couples cope when one partner gives up something important for the other), I often found myself wanting to hear more about Mark’s view of Kimball’s choice to leave the city. Kimball explains the decision by telling us that she discovered a surprising love for farming’s physical labor and that the farm — and Mark — gave her the sense of “home” for which she’d been longing. But even if the farm eventually became a shared vision, it has to be acknowledged that Mark was living out his lifelong dream while Kimball was initially just going along for the ride. She had the most to lose by agreeing to the plan and, given how uncompromising Mark can be (and his vocal disdain for so much of what characterized Kimball’s New York life), I sometimes wondered if he sufficiently honored and appreciated her choice to follow him.
But putting aside my role as armchair marriage counselor, you can tell I enjoyed The Dirty Life quite a lot. And now I get to hear what you thought about it. Let’s start talking about the book in the comments below. . . .
[And don’t forget: a week from today (August 31st) we’ll talk about Tomatoland, complete with a Q&A with Barry Estabrook, the book’s author!]
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Amy says
I thought Kimball’s descriptions of the farm, food, and neighbors were beautiful. That first meal she shared with Mark during her initial interview was written so vividly that I could almost taste it.
Oh the other hand, I found Kimball incredibly impulsive to give up everything in NYC on what I would consider a whim. While she didn’t really have any responsibility or other tie to the city, I just could not relate to someone who could change the entire course of her life in such a short period of time, with little calculation and much passion. Not that she was wrong, but I just don’t understand the rationale. And while I am thankful that she was honest in expressing her doubts prior to her marriage, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.
To sum up my opinion, I really loved that parts that were about the farm but was really alienated by Kimball’s personality in the memoir parts.
I don’t expect my opinion about Kimball to be popular, so this should get the discussion going! 🙂
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Amy – Is it just you and me? If so, I bought way too much wine for our book club! 🙂
At any rate, I know what you’re saying. Even though the author explained herself, somehow I felt there was more to her past or her personality than she was telling us, that would better explain the seemingly impulsive move.
Meanwhile, totally agree re: the descriptions of the food and the farm. I have gotten lazy lately (in part because it’s like a gazillion degrees out in Houston, for a record number of days in a row) and I’ve reverted to buying all my produce from air conditioned markets vs. the outdoor farmer’s market. Reading this book inspired me to get back on track in that regard.
Maggie says
I’m here too, just a long day at work – but no wine for me, thanks. 🙂
I wanted to like the book more than I did. I understand Kimball was/is a reporter and that is what it read like to me…an article by a reporter.
While I realize the reasons for doing some things were his decisions and not hers, I wish she’d talked more about that – why horses? Why no loans? I “get” it in general, but it seems like there were a lot of conditions for doing things.
I would have liked to know some of her thoughts/reasons about her sudden transformation – vegetarian to fan of freshly slaughtered pork, for example. I had to wonder too, about what seemed to me to be a lot of emphasis on how tired she was and how hard it is…and yes, how many animals were shot.
On the other hand, there were certainly parts that I did feel showed some emotion. She said something to the effect that she felt safe, knowing they could take care of themselves and not be as dependent on others.
My disclaimer – I grew up on a farm, so my view is certainly affected by that!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Maggie – I know what you mean about the book sometimes feeling like an article. There were times when I felt she was clearly just writing up her journal notes for the day, but more often than not those chapters did end on some thoughtful or insightful or poetic note that kept me going.
But yes, now that you mention it, the transformation from vegetarian to pig slaughterer/consumer is a pretty dramatic one and speaks to a general willingness to drop her convictions on a dime, as evidenced by the move from NYC to farm, yet she gave no explanation. As I said to Amy, it does make you wonder more about her personality and her past. Maybe it’s a level of self-examination that eludes her, as it might anyone.
I’m sure as someone who grew up on a farm you approached the book from an entirely different view point. For me, it was all new!
Tina says
I bought this book the day you submitted this blog post. I finished it maybe 24 hours after I purchased it. I couldn’t seem to put it down.
After I finished and let it percolate a bit, I felt some of the same things that the previous posters are discussing. I wish she had thrown in a few more personal touches – maybe a real “day in the life” would have been nice; an actual conversation between her and her husband-to-be. Something like that, you know?
I was also taken aback by her sudden conversion from 13 years of vegetarianism to someone who has no problem making and slicing up blood sausage. (Did that make anyone else throw up in her mouth a little? Gag.)
All that being said, I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in food and farming. Yes, I have backyard chickens and a small garden plot. And I’d thought that gave me an inkling into what working on a farm might be like. Boy, howdy, was I wrong.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Tina: The more you all comment, the more I realize I really did breeze past that passage about the switch to meat eating. It does say something important about the author and makes me view the whole lifestyle change in a new light. I wonder how much of it was being under Mark’s sway – she clearly dug him from the start, and by her account he’s a very persuasive salesperson. And I never thought about it but yes, DIALOGUE! Not enough!
Amy H says
I haven’t finished the book yet, but I had some similar reactions as the other commenters. I’ve been some version of a vegetarian for over 20 years, but since I’ve had kids I’ve been eating a little more poultry here and there (and, let’s face it, some bacon, too!). It’s been a gradual change for me, and I’m fine with it, but I was also taken a little aback by how quickly the author changed her eating habits. Vegetarianism is often as much a moral choice as it is a diet, and I would like to know more about what she was thinking when she made that quick transition. Also, I’d like to know more about her transition from New York City to the middle of nowhere. My family and I moved from Chicago to Charleston, SC several years ago, and I had a tough time with that change even though Charleston is not exactly rural.
Overall, I’m enjoying the book, and I will definitely finish it, but I feel like she could have included more personal thoughts and feelings since it’s a memoir.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Amy H – well, I did feel like she got into some of that (the difficulty of the transition) in, e.g., the passages about wandering aimlessly in stores just because she missed the constant commerce and stimulation of NYC, or making Mark go to the movies for a while.
But hey, like I said at the outset, the move from NYC to Houston was hard for me, so I totally appreciate where you’re coming from! 🙂
Andi says
I’m late! I’m going to start Tomatoland ASAP. I heard the author interviewed by Terry Gross. Lots of meat on that tomato.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Can’t wait to hear what you think of it. Meaty, indeed!
Amy says
Wow – I was really expecting any agreement on my post. My book group is reading this book for September and everyone but me voted for it (I had already read it thanks to TLT). I was expecting everyone to LOVE IT (this group is very into whole/organic foods and scratch cooking), but maybe I won’t be the only one who found parts perplexing!
Amy says
…really *not* expecting…
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Amy:
Maybe I’m too easily influenced by my readers but I’m feeling more negative about this book after our “discussion!” You all have definitely pointed out some flaws. But I would still recommend it to someone just as a good read – I flew threw it, and certainly felt I learned something (quite a lot, actually) about farming. At any rate, Amy, do tell us what your real world book club has to say – I’d be curious to hear more reactions.
Erika says
I’m a terrible reviewer so hadn’t responded previously. I don’t necessarily disagree w/ all the comments above but I do just want to say that I really enjoyed this book & I’d hate people to not try reading the book based on the comments above. The book was enlightening to me & fun & interesting. Maybe it wasn’t perfect but I’m still definitely glad I read it!