Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life - Softcover

Brett, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1553658035 ISBN 13: 9781553658030

Publisher: Greystone Books, 2011

Synopsis

Beginning naked in the darkness Brian Brett takes us on a journey through a summer’s day that also tells the story of his affectionately named Trauma Farm—exploring the garden, orchards, fields, the mysteries of live-stock and poultry, and the social intricacies of rural communities.

Both a memoir and a natural history of the small mixed farm, this eighteen-year-long day travels forward and backward in time, taking us all the way from Babylon to globalization and demonstrating the importance of both tall tales and rigorous science as Brett contemplates the perfection of the egg and the nature of soil or offers a scathing critique of agribusiness and the modern slaughterhouse. Whether discussing the uses and misuses of gates, examining the energy of seeds, or bantering with his family and neighbors, Brett remains aware of the miracles of life, birth, and death and the ecological paradoxes that confront the rural world every day.

Threaded with a deep knowledge of biology and botany, Trauma Farm is an erudite, poetic, passionate, and frequently hilarious portrait of rural life and a rich and thought-provoking meditation on the modern world.

About this title

About the Author

Brian Brett is the author of Trauma Farm, which won the 2009 Writers’ Trust of Canada Nonfiction Prize, and has written numerous books of poetry and fiction.

Review

Trauma Farm is a touching and tender memoir, at once humorous and profound, filled with wonderful insights about life as a poet and accidental farmer in what will always be, for Brian Brett especially, the gentle rainforests of home. —Wade Davis

(2009-06-11)

Trauma Farm is a passionate memoir of life on a small farm. Brian Brett rants and raves, bringing us his own version of guns and roses in the guise of wisdom and wit. A great book that asks the reader to read it and then joyfully read it again. —Patrick Lane

(2009-06-11)

It's easy to sympathize with Brett's world view. He represents the David of small farms against the Goliath of corporate agriculture. —Winnipeg Free Press

(2009-09-26)

Brett hangs meditations of farm life, observations on biology and botany, and musings about the modern world on this Joycean structure. His writing is so vivid, the observations so telling, that a reader can virtually feel the smooth heft of a collected egg in the palm of a hand or hear the goofy, honking dawn call of the peacock. —Globe & Mail

(2009-10-23)

In this gloriously detailed memoir, Brett brings us into life on his small working farm on Saltspring Island. A gorgeously thoughtful meditation on the natural world. —Vancouver Sun

(2009-10-26)

You can taste the food he describes, feel the cool morning air on naked skin, smell the dogs and feel the mud. Brett reads almost as an invitation, a provocation, to make the natural, rooted, harmonious existence our own in whatever small ways we can. —Montreal Gazette

(2009-11-14)

The work was hard, the pay was lousy, it was utter chaos, and I loved it. Brett would call that farming. Trauma Farm is a memoir and a natural history of small farms, rural life, biology, barnyards and botany set on an 18-year-long day. It begins and ends with Brett biblically and literally naked in the dark in the garden and poetically zigzags through time and place. —The Tyee

(2009-11-19)

Brett's wit and giddy ambivalence makes this account a stretch more provocative than similar rural memoirs, and an altogether compelling read. —Publisher's Weekly

(2009-11-29)

Brett successfully maintains a delicate balance between broader, abstract issues: the global and historic context, and personal anecdote: the concrete, day-to-day details of operating a small farm on Saltspring Island, BC. —Geist

(2010-04-01)

Brett neither champions the rural, pastoral cliches nor flinches in the face of the brutality of the natural world. Instead, he simply offers a deeply personal meditation on life on his small mixed farm . . . he leads the reader on a joyful, shocking, funny and absurdist journey that revels in the beauty of the smallest events. —Canadian Geographic

(2010-06-01)

Edition details

• Publisher: Greystone Books
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1553658035
• ISBN 13: 9781553658030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384