#Rural fiction

[puutterings]

puttering rocks, shadows slant

  ...occasionally by blithe spurts of whistling, and knew by his extreme busy-ness that he was merely puttering. ... rocks at the foot of the yard, and beyond it entered the beech woods, thinking over again 340 SHADOWS SLANT NORTH.

— Mary Bledsoe, Shadows Slant North (1937) : 340 : link (Michigan copy, via hathitrust)

from search puttering + slant : link

—

Listed at end of Caroline B. Sherman, “American Rural Fiction, 1937," with this description: “Simple life in a remote community in North Carolina is described as it is lived against a mighty background of mountains and forest.” In Agricultural Economics Literature (USDA, Bureau of Agricultural Economics) 12:1 (January 1938) : 2 : link

Others in that list include Edwin Corle, Vardis Fisher, Caroline Gordon, Mari Sandoz, Wallace Stegner and John Steinbeck.

Caroline Baldwin Sherman (1881-1971) “began her career in the USDA as the librarian in the Office of Markets in 1915... [and] moved up through the ranks over the decades to become head of editorial and research functions in the Division of Economic Information...” (Helen Tangires, Movable Markets: Food Wholesaling in the Twentieth-Century City, 2019) : 144 : link

According to Commirre (1975), Mary Bledsoe was a cataloguer at the Library of Congress, 1921-22; it is at least conceivable that she and Caroline B. Sherman crossed paths in D.C..

Mary (Bledsoe) Gillette (1894-1977), some particulars at Anne Commirre, Something about the Author (Gale Research, vol. 7; 1975) : 103-104 : link (at archive.org, borrowable)  

[youare-number6]

Futurist Farm from 70s Electronics Catalog - Pt 3

More futuristic farms but these were more influenced by the 50s book cover. But there are still some electronics components. Also, I asked for large animals and I got some.

[somewhereohio]

Episode 4: Estranged from Grace is out now!

Olivia wakes up after the altercation in the planetarium and learns what went down. Orange talks with the locals and does some light editing. Nadia discovers something about herself. Listen now!

[nowheresville-dakota]

[biandlesbianliterature]

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t a light read. It feels like an open wound: Delia especially is still hurting so much and hasn’t gotten closure on her trauma in going through conversion therapy. Eventually, though, we do see her begin to work through it, accompanied by the glimpses of the lives of the teenage girls she’s coaching. If you like to read character studies and quiet stories about working through trauma—and trying to lead a high school girls’ basketball team to glory, because that really is a big focus—I highly recommend this one. It’s a thoughtful, sometimes painful, but effective narrative, and it’s one that’s interesting to read after books like The Miseducation of Cameron Post, because this looks at not just the immediate horror, but the aftermath of being taught to hate yourself as a young person.

The Aftermath of Gay Conversion Camp: Tell the Rest by Lucy Jane Bledsoe was reviewed at the Lesbrary.

[4vschy]

joy - Park Soo-young

save, like and reply

[riverheadrangers]

Thorne, do you know something about Katherine that we don’t?

I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING.

I don’t know why you would think that,

I don’t know anything she wouldn’t want me to.

[anonymous-witness777]

prairie madness, a flatland, freeland when it snows it turns vacant the wind, the buried wheat, the oldland when it blows it tunnels through the ears the head, the skull cracked open to a sky resounding with too many answers to hear

wind, madness, wheat, floodland and a solitary figure the only tree for miles singing like ice in a storm. Singing to the beastland where cloudless air domes down to the hills tear over these like a wolf or a maenad or an angel’s feather, fallen from a mesh of six beast-wings beating out the void-wind to the tune of the reaper till-

ing to the face of God, too large to be seen between all that green, yellow, and white the light, the wind, the rain, the silence, flatland.

[lesbianjudasiscariot]

[fallout-lou-begas]

Nathaniel (1984), John Saul

[frodothefair]

Here are a few things I want to have happen to Marina and Elijah in Expats, which, inspired by Everything is Illuminated, is going to include a road trip through rural Ukraine, possibly to hide out at the family cabin.

-- Fun bit of trivia: Elijah Wood had to get a motorcycle license for his role as a teenager in Deep Impact, because one of the scenes required him to ride a motorcycle down a stretch of highway. Presumably, he still remembers how to do it, even if it's been a while and even if his license is no longer valid. This might tie in nicely into a scenario of "we're in the middle of nowhere and our car broke down and the nice man who is essentially the only one in this town and has worn the same hat for ten years has only a motorcycle to lend us." And when Elijah questions what to do if he's stopped and asked for his license, which he doesn't have on him and which is probably expired, he's told that 1) there's like one police officer for the entire county, and 2) in the unlikely scenario you are stopped, just give them a bribe and be done.

-- A rural location that includes the following piece of directions: "Drive until you can't drive anymore, and then get out and walk." (which kind of begs the question of what do you do with your car, do you just abandon it and is it going to be ok, but that's another story). Granted, this is a little more likely to happen in rural Russia than in rural Ukraine because the distances are greater, but I just think this is everything when it comes to rural locations. Bonus points for a dying village where there are more houses than residents, and the only reason Marina's family still has the cabin is because, in that remote location, you can't give real estate away, nobody wants it.

-- a joke about the fact that "Marina" means "boat parking lot." Possibly one of Elijah's friends/costars is fond of this joke. AhemDomAhem.

@from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @konartiste, @konjugaltdien I am tagging you because I've realized this is basically modern day LOTR/FoM in some ways - innocent, blue-eyed person flees a great peril with the love of his life.

[zabadi]

one of my favorite things in fiction & narrative nonfiction is detailed & lovingly rendered descriptions of an idiosyncratic job or way of life

[youare-number6]

Futurist Farm from 70s Electronics Catalog - Pt 2

..

[spookcataloger]

Wincest and Werewolves (2019)

[ginnybreeze]

current read:

salvage the bones - jesmyn ward

"A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fifteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting."

current r8: ☆☆☆☆

end r8: ☆☆☆☆

beautiful poeticism, setting, & plot. ending moved quickly, a little too quick for me. But overall, not my typical genre & I loved this book.

[upwards-descent]

I love collabing on OC facts with my partner, we both agreed that Autumn would be a big surf & turf guy since he's from Maine and then I got to find out rock crabs are the most common crabs in Maine so I guess Autumn loves those too now