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Pulling Down the Barn

Memories of a Rural Childhood: Great Lakes Books Series

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Pulling Down the Barn

By: Anne-Marie Oomen
Narrated by: Michelle Babb
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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

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)
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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

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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

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