The Awkward Ozarker: A Curious Tale of Self Reinvention in a Scantily Settled Land

In this witty, wise, heart-warming memoir, Blant Hurt, a fiftysomething flatlander with urban sensibilities, buys a ratty weekend cabin up in the dark heart of the Ozark Mountains. His new wife has a passing familiarity with this rugged area, but still... What are they doing? Their cabin is crudely built and lacks running water and electricity. Then there's the local land baron who aspires to build a giant sand mine on their doorstep. Aided by their deep-souled 'true Ozarker' neighbor, they slowly peel back the layers of what is basically a closed society up in the wilds of Izard County, Arkansas. They attend a one-room church with its oddball Yankee preacher, take on a magical stray dog that serves as his ever-eager hiking companion, brush against the local arts and crafts gentry (alas, neither he nor his wife has any craft-worthy skills, save her fondness for spray-painting), and even join a group of doomsday preppers.

Through it all, they come to relish their new lives in this little lost corner of the world. Eventually, owing to the ruin of the local land baron, they scheme to amass more property to pass on to their heirs as a so-called one hundred year legacy, if only they, like so many other dreamers up in the Ozarks, can pull it off.

Blant Hurt lives in the flatlands of Jonesboro, Arkansas. As often as possible, he ventures up into the Ozarks with his wife, Susanne, and of course Beargrease, his dog. He is the author of Healer’s Twlight, a novel, and his columns have appeared in Arkansas Business, Jonesboro Sun, and The Wall Street Journal.