Pulling Down the Barn cover art

Pulling Down the Barn

Memories of a Rural Childhood: Great Lakes Books Series

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Pulling Down the Barn

By: Anne-Marie Oomen
Narrated by: Michelle Babb
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Pulling Down the Barn eloquently recalls author Anne-Marie Oomen's personal journey as she discovers herself an outsider on her family farm located in western Michigan's Oceana County, in the township of Elbridge - a couple hundred acres in the middle of rural America. Written as a series of heartfelt interlocking narratives, this collection of essays portrays the realities of farm life: haying, picking asparagus and cherries, the machinery of tractors and pickers; but each chapter also touches upon the more ethereal and rarely articulated: the stoic love that permeates a family, the farmer's struggle with identity, and the way land can shape a childhood. With its rich language and style, Pulling Down the Barn engrosses the listener in Oomen's memories - setting beauty and wonder against work and loss - and paints a poignant portrait of growing up in rural Michigan.

Winner of the Michigan Notable Book Awards. The book is published by Wayne State University Press.

©2004 Wayne State University Press (P)2015 Redwood Audiobooks Art & Literature Authors Essays Parenting & Families Relationships Rural Sociology Nonfiction Village Heartfelt Michigan

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Time and Again cover art
Patchwork Man cover art
The Buried Book cover art
The Book of Harlan cover art
The Apple Orchard cover art
White Lines cover art
Ella's Twisted Senior Year cover art
Bruiser cover art
My Brilliant Friend cover art
A Prayer for Owen Meany cover art
My Family and Other Animals cover art
Revolution cover art
Miller's Valley cover art
Legend cover art
The Forgotten Garden cover art
Orphan Train: A Novel cover art

Critic reviews

"Anne-Marie Oomen has written a perfect gem of a book: deceptively quiet, delicately structured, but with the enduring force, strength, and brilliance of a diamond." (A. Manette Ansay, author of Limbo and Vinegar Hill)
" Pulling Down the Barn is a vivid and magical work." (Barbara Hurd, author of Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark)
" Pulling Down the Barn is a wonderfully lyrical and evocative memoir." (Michael Steinberg, founding editor of Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction and author of Still Pitching: A Memoir)
All stars
Most relevant

Listener received this title free

This is a very different book for me, I normally listen to mysteries but I like the narrator so gave it a go. I did listen all the way through but can't say I was gripped by the story. The story is made up by chapters and each chapter is a memory or a snippet in time in the authors life, where she struggles with life living on a farm in hurricanes, snow storms or harvest time. The chapters aren't very long and it is soon on to the next and while it was long enough that you didn't get board I did wonder if she had gone into a little more detail if it would engage the listener more. The stories were varied and well written but I think it is an audio book that once you have heard you have heard it and you aren't likely to 're listen too it again.
As I said the reason I got this book was because of the narrator, who I like very much. She is a big part of the reason I kept listening until the end of the book because she made it interesting .
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Life on a farm

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

I'm unsure about this book it is written well and read well, but it is one that I will have to go back to to full benefit from it. The story line is good and overall it is interesting and worth listening to.

Pulling Down the Barn

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.