Twenty Acres
A Seventies Childhood in the Woods
Published on 7. March 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-68226-227-6 (ISBN)
Description
Sarah Neidhardt grew up in the woods. When she was an infant, her parents left behind comfortable, urbane lives to take part in the back-to-the-land movement. They moved their young family to an isolated piece of land deep in the Arkansas Ozarks where they built a cabin, grew crops, and strove for eight years to live self-sufficiently.
In this vivid memoir Neidhardt explores her childhood in wider familial and social contexts. Drawing upon a trove of family letters and other archival material, she follows her parents' journey from privilege to food stamps-from their formative youths, to their embrace of pioneer homemaking and rural poverty, to their sudden and wrenching return to conventional society-and explores the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s as it was, and as she lived it.
A story of strangers in a strange land, of class, marriage, and family in a changing world, Twenty Acres: A Seventies Childhood in the Woods is part childhood idyll, part cautionary tale. Sarah Neidhardt reveals the treasures and tolls of unconventional, pastoral lives, and her insightful reflections offer a fresh perspective on what it means to aspire to pre-industrial lifestyles in a modern world.
In this vivid memoir Neidhardt explores her childhood in wider familial and social contexts. Drawing upon a trove of family letters and other archival material, she follows her parents' journey from privilege to food stamps-from their formative youths, to their embrace of pioneer homemaking and rural poverty, to their sudden and wrenching return to conventional society-and explores the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s as it was, and as she lived it.
A story of strangers in a strange land, of class, marriage, and family in a changing world, Twenty Acres: A Seventies Childhood in the Woods is part childhood idyll, part cautionary tale. Sarah Neidhardt reveals the treasures and tolls of unconventional, pastoral lives, and her insightful reflections offer a fresh perspective on what it means to aspire to pre-industrial lifestyles in a modern world.
Reviews / Votes
"Twenty Acres is an engaging, thoughtful memoir of growing up in an off-the-grid cabin as part of the 1970s back-to-the-land movement. Sarah Neidhardt captures her subject beautifully and offers a compelling portrait of a highly specific, historically significant time and place."-Kate Daloz, author of We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America"At turns poetic, shocking, terrifying, and nostalgic-and always riveting and real as dirt-Sarah Neidhardt's meticulously researched memoir gives voice to a generation of back-to-the-landers' children and to this hidden history of American family life."-Ariel Gore, author of The Wayward Writer: Summon Your Power to Take Back Your Story, Liberate Yourself from Capitalism, and Publish Like a Superstar
"Twenty Acres is authentic, clear, and evocative . . . a superb book."-David Orr, author of Dangerous Years: Climate Change, the Long Emergency, and the Way Forward
"Weaving together extraordinary research and memories with gorgeously rendered prose, Neidhardt captures the zeitgeist of the back-to-the-land movement in the story of her family's years in the Ozarks. Equal parts memoir and ethnography, Twenty Acres is lush, haunting, and ultimately elegiac."-Megan Kruse, author of Call Me Home
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Fayetteville
United States
Illustrations
49 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
493 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68226-227-6 (9781682262276)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2023
1st Edition
University of Arkansas Press
€39.49
Available for download
Person
Sarah Neidhardt has worked as a bookseller, secretary, paralegal, copyeditor, and stay-at-home mother. She grew up in Arkansas and Northern California and now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and teenage son. She is a graduate of Oberlin College.