In her 2011 memoir, The Dirty Life, Kristin Kimball chronicled her completely unexpected transition from an urban to a rural existence. From her high-heel-wearing, frequent-flyer 20s as a freelance writer in New York City, Kimball moved to tiny Essex, N.Y., to build a farm and a life with a tall, exuberant man named Mark. In her second memoir, Good Husbandry, Kimball delves deeper into the narrative of Essex Farm, which is now her home, her livelihood and the center of her universe. With warmth, honesty and vivid anecdotes, Kimball weaves a compelling narrative that gives readers a glimpse into birthing calves, harvesting corn and raising rural kids in the 21st century.
Kimball's memoir relates the farm's history alongside her own personal story (and Mark's). The land is their literal and figurative foundation, and Kimball traces the scrappy, cheerful, sometimes rocky first years of making do with salvaged equipment and cooking huge team dinners for their crew of young trainee farmers. Eventually, with a farm and a young child both growing by leaps and bounds, Kristin and Mark had to address questions of boundaries and scale. How could they draw distinctions between work and home life while living at work and working at home? How could they grow enough food to feed their family and satisfy their farm-share customers without running themselves (entirely) ragged or wearing the land completely out?
Kimball writes movingly about accepting the gifts and the hardships of each season, outer and inner. Good Husbandry is a clear-eyed tribute to a tough but nourishing rural life and the deep, sustainable joy it provides. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams