This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone by Melissa Coleman

Apr 27, 2013 Madrezenith rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was fascinated with this book due to a lifelong interest in homesteading, organic farming, and back-to-the-land culture. I worked for Wes Jackson in the 1990's and saw first-hand the beauty and also a bit of the dark underside of the organic farming movement. This memoir goes much deeper that my own experiences - the author (roughly my age) grew up the child of homesteader/farmers who emulated, bought land from and lived next to Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and vege...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Marian rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating story of the author's parents' connection to Scott and Helen Nearing and the self-sustaining movement ("Living the Good Life"). It is also well written.

I noticed it in the biographies section of my local library (Rutland Free Library in Rutland VT). When I was in my late teens I had a fantasy of living on a commune. Never did it. Later, I wondered so much about the children in those communities and how they fared. We have slowly been getting their stories.

In Melissa Coleman...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Kellie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, gardening

You might like this book if you are a fan of the writings of Eliot Coleman, organic gardening expert, or you like memoirs such as Glass Castles that tell real stories of families that go through extreme circumstances.

My Review:
This book just grabbed me by the throat from the first few words and images. The writing is beautiful and almost mystical in tone. I found it by chance when I was searching my library catalog for the Eliot Coleman books I check out every year in the early spring. He is a g...more You might like this book if you are a fan of the writings of Eliot Coleman, organic gardening expert, or you like memoirs such as Glass Castles that tell real stories of families that go through extreme circumstances.

My Review:
This book just grabbed me by the throat from the first few words and images. The writing is beautiful and almost mystical in tone. I found it by chance when I was searching my library catalog for the Eliot Coleman books I check out every year in the early spring. He is a gardening expert whose teachings about feeding the soil rather than using pesticides resonate with me. I never knew much about him personally, but this book, by his oldest daughter, has changed all that. She writes with honesty, clarity and care about her growing-up years on a homestead in rural Maine during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970's. She tells a story of ideals coming face to face with reality and of the dreams of a visionary contrasting with the daily needs of raising a family. Along the way there is tragic loss, heartbreak and glimpses into what it really means to find the truest meaning in life.

At times, life was idyllic, at times life was just dang hard, and at all times, the Coleman family worked incredibly hard to make their homestead a home. In the end, in spite of outward successes, Greenwood Farm came just short of that state of being a real, permanent home, and therein lies the conflict at the heart of the story.

To me it is both a thrilling and inspirational account of what can be accomplished if you focus and put your best efforts into something and a cautionary tale of what happens when anything, no matter how worthwhile, starts to eclipse the importance of the relationships we have with other people. It simultaneously makes me want to plant more garden beds but also to hug my husband and children and be grateful for my perhaps less passionate but more balanced life.

In the end, there is love, appreciation and forgiveness. The torn strands of the author's family have been rewoven, perhaps not in the pattern either Eliot or Sue Coleman first imagined, but nonetheless, beauty can be seen in the end result.(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Clytee rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book in a smallish bookstore that manages to stay open in the downtown of Bemidji, Minnesota (population about 13,000). I drove my parents to the family cabin(s) from Scottsbluff, Nebraska to Bemidji, Minnesota this summer and in the couple of days I had once we got there checked out this bookstore that I love. This was a fascinating book. The author's parents, in 1968, moved to a homestead to live off the land and became "icons of the back-to-the-land movement", but it turns out mu...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Abbe added it

Shelves: in-library

From Publishers Weekly

With urban farming and backyard chicken flocks becoming increasingly popular, Coleman has written this timely and honest portrait of her own childhood experience in Maine with her two homesteading parents during the turbulent 1970s. Inspired by the back-to-the-land lifestyle of Scott and Helen Nearing, Coleman's parents, Sue and Eliot, decided to create their own idyllic reality on 60 acres of land in Maine that was sold to them by the Nearing family for a token sum. Whil

...more From Publishers Weekly

With urban farming and backyard chicken flocks becoming increasingly popular, Coleman has written this timely and honest portrait of her own childhood experience in Maine with her two homesteading parents during the turbulent 1970s. Inspired by the back-to-the-land lifestyle of Scott and Helen Nearing, Coleman's parents, Sue and Eliot, decided to create their own idyllic reality on 60 acres of land in Maine that was sold to them by the Nearing family for a token sum. While Coleman emphasizes the beauty of growing up in a family culture that valued the bounty of nature and freedom of expression, she does not hesitate to also expose farming's detrimental effect on family life—her own well-being as well as the accidental death of her younger sister. (Mar.)
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Review

“Combine the sincerity of Walden with the poignancy of The Glass Castle, add dashes of the lush prose found in The Botany of Desire, and you get This Life Is in Your Hands.... I was engaged and deeply moved by this evocative tale of Paradise found then lost.” (Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed )

“Melissa Coleman’s enthralling account of ‘70s back-to-the-land living is an important cultural and emotional document: this is a story about surviving and, eventually, thriving amidst the shadows of loss.” (Heidi Julavits, author of The Uses of Enchantment )

“A dream, a family, a heartbreaking tragedy—and a book I could not put down. Melissa Coleman’s memoir of a back-to-the-land childhood is fresh, organic, and gorgeously written.” (Peter Behrens, author of The Law of Dreams )

“Coleman’s moving recounting never loses hope of redemption.” (_People_, Lead Review "People Pick" )

“With beautiful lyrical prose, Coleman shows us what life in a 1970s back-to-nature farm was like, and the dear price her family paid pursuing their dream.” (Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread and The Knitting Circle )

“Lyrical and down-to-earth, wry and heartbreaking, This Life Is In Your Hands is a fascinating and powerful memoir. Melissa Coleman doesn’t just tell the story of her family’s brave experiment and private tragedy; she brings to life an important and underappreciated chapter of our recent history.” (Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher )

“Intense readability.... haunting power.... as well as lush, vivid atmosphere that is alluring in its own right.... [A] story so nuanced that it would be a disservice to reveal what was in store. If you want to know what happened, read it for yourself.” (Janet Maslin, New York Times )

“[This] is a rare breed of book-a memoir that justifies its own existence; that feels like it needs to exist.... Coleman shows that without the essential ingredient of heart, any family-no matter how perfect and revolutionary it seems-is in danger of experiencing real loss.” (NPR.org )

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Sep 13, 2012 Mary Cronk rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this memoir. Melissa Coleman grew up in different circumstances than most Americans today. It is the story of growing up on a self sufficient farm that had little technology and meager resources. There was a certain detachment is parts of the book, like she was looking at her past life as a new person and not the old. Although the story was of heartbreak, there were good years in the beginning that were enriching and loving. But, it was a life of poverty and deprivation in terms of the...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Florinda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's taken a few decades for the "organic" lifestyle to work its way into the mainstream, but during the last ten years or so, the desire to eat foods that have been produced in a sustainable, low-tech way seems to have become much more widespread, and the producers and consumers of these foods don't seem to be viewed so much as crunchy, hippie-ish fringe-dwellers these days. Having said that, the movement has honest roots among crunchy hippie fringe-dwellers, and Melissa Coleman's family were s...more It's taken a few decades for the "organic" lifestyle to work its way into the mainstream, but during the last ten years or so, the desire to eat foods that have been produced in a sustainable, low-tech way seems to have become much more widespread, and the producers and consumers of these foods don't seem to be viewed so much as crunchy, hippie-ish fringe-dwellers these days. Having said that, the movement has honest roots among crunchy hippie fringe-dwellers, and Melissa Coleman's family were some of the people who planted those roots (pun intended, for the record). In her memoir, This Life Is In Your Hands, Coleman takes readers to Greenwood Farm on the Maine coast, the pioneering community where her father worked to advance sustainable agriculture...and where her family imploded.

In some respects, Greenwood Farm would seem to be an idyllic place to experience one's childhood, particularly during the short and fertile New England summers. Melissa and her sisters could, quite literally, run around naked all day long, and they had the proverbial "village" of caretakers at hand in Greenwood Farm's "apprentices"--college and graduate students who came to work and learn from Melissa's father, Eliot, and who became an extended family. The less-than-idyllic part was that the Coleman children couldn't always count on their own parents. Eliot's first devotion was to the farm, even at, ironically, the risk of his own health; the girls' mother Sue was, all too often, just overwhelmed by the challenges of their everyday lives. The "pioneering" of the Colemans and their associates went all the way--they lived without electricity and indoor plumbing in small houses they built themselves.

Melissa Coleman was a child during the years at Greenwood Farm, and it's her evocation of the wonders and feelings of childhood that make This Life Is In Your Hands such compelling reading. The adults in her life are frequently portrayed as seen through a child's eyes, which makes the effects on that child when they really don't live up to being adults that much more devastating. Without much exposure to other influences, children can be pretty accepting that whatever they know as "normal" is "the norm," but they may still have an innate sense of when the world around them feels wrong. Coleman conveys that well; reading her story, I had the feeling early on that things wouldn't quite work out, but I was completely surprised by the event that ultimately undid the family at Greenwood Farm.(less)

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Jun 07, 2012 Jim Bronec rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I first started farming organically someone gave me the book "living the Good Life" by Scott and Helen Nearing. It tells of there lives getting back to the land, living 100% off what they grow, and shunning themselves from most of modern day technology. I put it down half way thru because I felt them to be overbaring and judgemental in there assesment of the culture and in the promoting of their lifestyle. But most importantly I didn't believe they were being totally truthful. Turns out my...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Deb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Back in the 1960s and early 70s, my formative years, one of the countercultural threads running through the zeitgeist was a romantic back-to-the-land movement. I chose this book because back in those days my husband and I had fantasies of living "the good life" as defined by the movement evangelists, Scott and Helen Nearing, and this is the story of a young couple who really did it. Eliot Coleman and his wife Susan bought land adjacent to the Nearings' in Maine, and lived self-sufficiently off t...more Back in the 1960s and early 70s, my formative years, one of the countercultural threads running through the zeitgeist was a romantic back-to-the-land movement. I chose this book because back in those days my husband and I had fantasies of living "the good life" as defined by the movement evangelists, Scott and Helen Nearing, and this is the story of a young couple who really did it. Eliot Coleman and his wife Susan bought land adjacent to the Nearings' in Maine, and lived self-sufficiently off the farm they created. During this time they had three daughters, and this memoir is authored by the first-born, Melissa Coleman.

I'm not really revealing a spoiler to say that a tragedy will end this family's sojourn in Paradise. We learn that early on. That part of the story is heartbreaking and well presented; but even if it hadn't happened, we get the sense that the "good life" wasn't all that good, and that it would have ended eventually, at least for these people, anyway. For once-young dreamers like me, who wonder if an alternate life "off the grid" might have been more fulfilling, this story is a lesson in hard reality.

Coleman writes beautifully at times, especially when she immerses the narrative in an authentic childs'-eye view of life. But I have a problem with how she tells a story she admittedly doesn't fully remember in first person, or perhaps I should say in first child. Even scenes of her parents' lives before she was born are told in this same voice, and it is disconcerting. While she marvelously captures the childlike wonder of her remembered point of view, there are many parts of this story that need to be examined from an adult perspective, and I simply found the constant reference to "Mama" and "Papa" to be unnerving. Hard questions remain at the end. I got the strong impression that there are important things the author didn't tell us because she knew her parents, who are still living, would be reading her book.

But overall I enjoyed the book and recommend it to any corporate cubicle drone (like me)who ever dreamed of living closer to nature.(less)

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May 01, 2012 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a really interesting memoir about a woman whose parents decided to move to a remote part of Maine and live off-the-grid and farm. The story is well-written and vivid, and the voice is authentic. The best parts of the book are the descriptions of the acts of working the land and struggling for their existence. The story is structured around two main questions. The first is about this type of hippie commune/ organic farmer/ pioneer lifestyle, built on self-sufficiency and hard work, and if...more

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Apr 22, 2012 T 8 rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found this book had both positives and negatives, that leave it at about average (2.5 stars)

The good:
I'm really glad this story was told. How many people, imagining a carefree life, free from modern stresses, have thought: "we should just leave this town/city, and get back to living in nature!" To me, this book serves as a cautionary tale to foregoing all modern conveniences. Although the story is framed with reference to a major tragedy in the beginning that doesn't come until the end, one ca...more I found this book had both positives and negatives, that leave it at about average (2.5 stars)

The good:
I'm really glad this story was told. How many people, imagining a carefree life, free from modern stresses, have thought: "we should just leave this town/city, and get back to living in nature!" To me, this book serves as a cautionary tale to foregoing all modern conveniences. Although the story is framed with reference to a major tragedy in the beginning that doesn't come until the end, one can see that the tragic circumstances are unfolding all around the daughter, Lissie, throughout as her parents work their hands "to the bone" in order to survive on their terms. About halfway through the book ("Paradise"), I found the novel difficult to put down--the writing became more moving and dramatic, partly as stories were told from the author's own memory.

The bad:

Before this point in the book, the stories seemed patched together, straining to romanticize the move to homesteading, and emotionally distant (as, I'm assuming, they were related to the author by her parents rather than told from her own memory). For the first hundred pages or so, there would be glimmers of interesting passages, but mostly it was story to wade through before the "tragedy" came up. The book, in fact, could have started where her memory starts, filling us in on the Colemans' lifestyle in short retrospectives, while the central drama unfolds.

On that note, I don't think the prologue framing worked; the foreshadowing was a little too on the nose for me (the girl's palm with a "short life line" the crow as an "omen of death" if the first few pages). It makes it a task to get through hundreds of pages, knowing what's coming.

The depiction of the parents (or, more likely, the parents themselves) really frustrated me. While she obviously loves her father, I was angered at his zealousness (what malnourished person reprimands eating meat, then wastefully kills and throws out healthy farm animals they don't want?). At best, they were naive and taken in by something like a cult; at worst, they were grossly negligent (it is obvious they are not disciplining the kids for their own safety, when they let them defecate all over, forego vaccines, etc.).

Perhaps for the author there might not be enough distance to reflect about the story in a wholly critical way, as family members are still here to read her words. Then again, inane as this approach to homesteading was, the silver lining may be that this movement brought some awareness to the unhealthy or wasteful ways most Americans in the 1970s and 80s lived. For this reason, I can see writing to the zeitgeist of the organic movement makes it important for the story to be published now, rather than waiting for safer distance from a critical reception of the book by family members.(less)

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Dec 09, 2011 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir about homesteading in the 1960s-1970s, written by someone who was a child in the homesteading family. Even though homesteading and organic gardening are not particular interests of mine (although food "politics" is), I found this book completely engrossing. It was so lyrically and poetically written, especially for a non-fiction book. The writer has a real talent for gorgeous writing, and especially writing that evokes the feel of being out in nature. What a wond...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Anne Fitzpatrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was telling my father-in-law's girlfriend about my current fascination with growing/gathering/raising one's own food (an idle fascination, since I am lazy and have no real desire to labor in a garden or chicken coop), and she told me I should read this book she'd just finished. So she sent it to me. But when I read the flap and realized that the book was also about the accidental death of a three-year-old, well--this mother of a three-year-old wasn't too enthusiastic about reading it. But even...more

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Oct 06, 2011 Ciara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobio-memoir, read-in-2011

this was recommended to me by a friend. it's a memoir by a woman who was raised on a back-to-the-land homestead in the 70s. her parents were followers of scott & helen nearing. the nearings sold her parents a parcel of land & her father, eliot coleman, became pretty well known in organic faming/gardening circles, apparently. but it was far from an idyllic life. eliot suffered from hyperthyroidism, which compromised his health in pretty significant ways & exacerbated his wife's depres...more this was recommended to me by a friend. it's a memoir by a woman who was raised on a back-to-the-land homestead in the 70s. her parents were followers of scott & helen nearing. the nearings sold her parents a parcel of land & her father, eliot coleman, became pretty well known in organic faming/gardening circles, apparently. but it was far from an idyllic life. eliot suffered from hyperthyroidism, which compromised his health in pretty significant ways & exacerbated his wife's depression. & when their middle daughter, heidi, was three years old, she drowned in a pond on the land. this is hardly a spoiler, because it is stated inn the jacket copy. the colemans' relationship was strained by eliot's health issues, sue's depression, the death of their daughter, eliot's fanaticism for the homestead, & the isolation of the homesteading lifestyle, as well as the many comely lasses that showed up during the season to apprentice. & the colemans didn't seem to have a great methodology for working out their issues in a way that wouldn't be extremely traumatizing for the children. because eliot was devoted to the homestead & sue's depression made the work more difficult & less appealing for her, eliot told her to take the youngest child & clear out back to her parents' house on several occasions. at one point, both parents up & left while melissa was sleeping, leaving her in the care of the neighbors.

all of this is pretty much stated on the jacket copy. the book just spins out the narrative for 300+ laborious pages. i kept waiting for the story to pick up speed & go someplace concrete, but it never really happened. there were just a lot of descriptions of the labor involved in maintaining an organic farm, the various birds that nested in the woods, what the family ate (they maintained a strict vegetarian diet, & melissa suggests this wasn't exactly helping anyone's physical or mental health), etc. it wasn't terrible, but i read it right after i finished arms wide open, so i think i had hit my wall for tedious descriptions of homesteading hippies.

& as other reviewers have mentioned, it was definitely weird for melissa to describe events that transpired well before her birth as if she was an eyewitness. such as the circumstances under which her parents met. i don't doubt that melissa interviewed her parents for the book, maybe had access to her mother's journals, maybe remembers stories her parents told her when she was little. my parents definitely told me all about how they met & their initial impressions of one another. so i'm not in the camp that thinks it's bogus for melissa to pass this book off as memoir when she's writing more of a biography of her parents. it was just a little strange.(less)

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Sep 13, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life. This is a story of a family of their disciples, living off a small portion of the Nearing's land. Their story is fascinating, enlightening, and reads like a novel.

Many of this family's practices are fairly mainstream now, but in the 1970s they were really blazing a new trail. I was struck by the ways that, eventually, there were many concessions made to their Good Life Philosophy. Perhaps humans are just wired to be driven. The simple life...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Scputval rated it 4 of 5 stars

Knocked me out. May interest anyone who was involved in back-to-land movement,
or communes. Or currently committed to organic farming and eating, and interested
in its 1960-1970 manifestation. Very sad. Memoir of the daughter of homesteaders
turned commune turned tragedy. . The book's not perfect:
there are inconsistencies in the author's viewpoint (could this have happened to anyone,
or was it pre-destined?) and also didactic at times. Disagree with some reviewers who
complain about 'spoiler' on jack...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Mariah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This memoir of a girl growing up in the 70's to homesteading, hippie parents in Maine was well written and parts of it rang true (mostly the positive parts luckily!) with the semi-hippie parents I grew up with in rural Wisconsin. Her family had deeper issues, though, illness with her father, depression with her mother and a terrible accident that took their toll and eventually tore the family apart. I resent a bit that the fact that her family's dysfunctions were blamed on their lifestyle choice...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

I have a distaste for “memoirs” which impute thoughts to other people, recite conversations the author could not have remembered or heard, etc.- I’d prefer it if it were called a fictionalized memoir or biography upfront. So that’s part of my problem here but I also found the writing unpolished and the theme shaky. It felt rather like Coleman was blaming her parents’ homesteading for their marital problems, her father’s hyperthyroidism, and the death of her sister, which was a bit much... yes, t...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Amanda Hogg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

On particularly smoggy LA days when it takes me over an hour to drive 17.5 miles, I sometimes dream about ditching the city and hauling ass to the country to live off the land. These daydreams take me to Sonoma, Napa - somewhere close enough to a big city where drinking a glass of wine at lunch with your garden salad is normal. Rarely, however, do my fantasies to farm take me to Maine. In This Life is in Your Hands, a couple, the author's parents, do just this.

Melissa Coleman writes about growin...more

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Jul 15, 2011 McGuffy Morris rated it 5 of 5 stars

To say this book is a beautifully written memoir does not do it justice. Melissa Coleman tells the story of her parents and what moved them not to be hippies, but to be true back-to-nature farmers. They were not interested in the drug culture, altering their minds, or a commune way of life. They wanted only to provide a natural, simple, down to earth life for themselves and their family.

Following the example, of Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life, Eliot and Sue Coleman forg...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

The writing in this memoir of a childhood lived back-to-the-land in rural coastal Maine is mostly good, though some of the dialogue is impossibly hokey, but maybe that is what 1970s back-to-the-landers talk like? At times it is pretty impossible to believe that Coleman can actually remember most of what she recounts, largely because it occurred when she was very young. She even imputes thoughts to various people who were having them before she was born. But it's a compelling story of trial and e...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Marjorie rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I haven't read other reviews yet, so I may be the only person who is not wild about this book. Here are things that I thought made it worth reading: learning more about the origins of the health food movement; meeting some of the characters; reliving the sixties and the seventies. However, aside from the fact that I can't imagine that the author's education led her to write things like "a couple days (weeks, months) later" (yes, I know that stylistically that usage is becoming more accepted, and...more I haven't read other reviews yet, so I may be the only person who is not wild about this book. Here are things that I thought made it worth reading: learning more about the origins of the health food movement; meeting some of the characters; reliving the sixties and the seventies. However, aside from the fact that I can't imagine that the author's education led her to write things like "a couple days (weeks, months) later" (yes, I know that stylistically that usage is becoming more accepted, and I guess I am a usage prig), there were some essential things going on in the book that to me were very disturbing. I admire that Melissa has been able to get her life together so well after a decidedly problematical childhood, filled as it may have been with groovy moments.

This is a tale that is a very old one. Utopian communities like the one the Colemans were looking to establish (at first for themselves, and then with others) have been around for centuries if not as long as humans have been alive and thought about how to live more idealistically. Many of them were established around this period of time, and some probably are still in existence. Having just returned from Salt Lake City, I would suggest that the Mormon community is an example of a Utopian community that has thrived. Upstate New York in the 19th and early 20th century was a hotbed of these kinds of communities. During the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam era, many of us became disillusioned with the way in which American ideals were not being practiced 'on the ground'. The fifties and sixties, characterized by the growth of suburbs and simultaneously the earliest beginnings of the women's movement, were seen by many as a period of mindless conformity. This seems to have been the case with the Colemans, who believed that they could be self-sufficient and not have to live like their parents, and that they could sustain a healthier lifestyle. As with many things, their hopes are to be admired. However, when you add children into the picture, life can get hard for idealists having to grow their own food. (I'm reminded of trips to pioneer cemeteries where many children die at a very young age.) While their intentions may have been the best, in reality there were (in my lay opinion) serious mental health issues that were not addressed that had serious, serious, tragic consequences. Melissa Coleman is careful not to point the finger of blame on her parents. Heidi's death could have occurred in any family. However, there were enough instances in Melissa's descriptions of their family's life to suggest that neither parent had that gut-level sense of "where are the kids" enough that could protect them sufficiently. And, in actuality, Melissa talks about how her mother actually 'checked out' even while she was supposed to be caring for her kids. This, among other behaviors, leads me to think that Sue was severely depressed much of the time and rather than encourage her to get help, Eliot often took off rather than give her the help that she needed. As is often the case, their extended families seemed concerned but unable to intervene sufficiently. It would be very interesting to hear the story from the point of view of the author's aunts and uncles.
I've been married long enough and I've been a parent long enough to know that people change, accidents happen, and no matter how hard we try sometimes we can't fix things. However, the solutions that were proposed in this family ("I don't really love you any more, take one of the kids and go live with your parents") were just downright wrong. Or worse - "I don't love you and I am leaving you here on this farm with the children and no money." And how terrible when Melissa wakes up one day and realizes that there were NO parents there to take care of her, just the 'interns' who were living on the property and helping with the farm.
Unfortunately, my impatience - that isn't even a strong enough word - with the behavior of these parents seriously interfered with my ability to appreciate the book. From the beginning, you knew that something bad was going to happen to one of the children - most likely Heidi - and the lack of oversight of the children came through loud and clear. They may have been loving parents, and had a vision of feeding their children way better than with supermarket food, but there were definitely some missing pieces that would have benefited from some good counseling and parenting classes. I will concede that at this period of time, postpartum depression counseling and good medications were not readily available. But Coleman's mother seems to have had more than just a bad case of the blues, and her father seems to have been lost in the dream.
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Apr 07, 2011 Laurie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Author Melissa Coleman was a child born during the back to the land movement of the 1960s-70s. Her parents, inspired by Helen and Scott Nearings book “Living the Good Life”- the story of how the Nearings moved to the unforgiving climate of the Maine coast and produced ‘all they needed’ from the land- moved to Maine, bought part of the Nearings property, and set out to do the same.

What they didn’t realize was that the Nearings weren’t entirely truthful in their books. They went south for the win...more Author Melissa Coleman was a child born during the back to the land movement of the 1960s-70s. Her parents, inspired by Helen and Scott Nearings book “Living the Good Life”- the story of how the Nearings moved to the unforgiving climate of the Maine coast and produced ‘all they needed’ from the land- moved to Maine, bought part of the Nearings property, and set out to do the same.

What they didn’t realize was that the Nearings weren’t entirely truthful in their books. They went south for the winters, they made profits from the sales of their books that enabled them to buy small luxuries, and, perhaps most important to the story Coleman tells, they didn’t have children.

While the Colemans weren’t hippies as hippies are commonly thought of- they didn’t do drugs, have any interest in communes or practice free love- they definitely strove to drop out of society. And really, they didn’t have any time for anything but the homestead. It was dawn to dusk (and after dusk and by the moon or kerosene lamps times), 365 days a year unending toil. Maine is a hard place to survive without modern conveniences. But after a couple of years, there was enough land cleared of trees and stumps, and the soil was enriched organically enough, that they had enough vegetables to be able to sell some at a roadside stand. Soon word of what they were doing got out, reporters came calling, and unpaid interns started showing up. The Colemans became famous within the organic and homesteading movement. While the interns meant more work could be done, they also were more mouths to feed, and then tended to spend their days on the farm naked.

Even though they were finding themselves successful at homesteading, Melissa’s parents were having problems. Sue was emotionally fragile and overwhelmed by the work, and just couldn’t take the extra labor of raising the girls (author Melissa and her little sister Heidi) or the stress of watching her attractive husband working with young, naked blond women all day. It was she that was expected to feed everyone, to put food by for winter, to do the mending and sewing and cleaning and goat milking, on top of working outside on the farm. She suffers from depression, especially after childbirth. She mentally ‘checks out’ at times, ceasing to react to the children’s needs- or much of anything at all. Eliot, on the other hand, is nearly manic. A hyperactive thyroid gland drives him night and day, from project to project- projects that seize his entire attention, leaving little for his wife and children. Melissa and Heidi are basically left to grow wild, with the neighbors and the interns there physically for them but not emotionally. No one is really there emotionally for the girls. Then, one day, Heidi drowns in the pond. This is the last straw for the marriage and for the farm. The dream is over.

The author seamlessly blends her own childhood recollections with accounts she’s garnered from talking with the adults who populated her childhood, allowing us a full view of what happened. In the course of these talks, she finally discovers that she was not to blame for Heidi’s death-something she was never accused of but felt guilty of just the same. She recreates the feel of the times, the idealism that infused these back to the landers. I remember this era well; the names and events she mentions bring back my own memories of how it felt to think that a homestead was the way to go, that this was the wave of the future, the way to health of both people and the planet, of having that same idealism the Colemans had. Excellent book.
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May 19, 2011 willaful rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, nonfiction, nonfiction-locavore-food-gardening

3.5 stars. I won this from GoodReads.

This memoir hit me in a personal way, because I also grew up in the 70's with parents living out of the mainstream; for years I've been hungry for real depiction of what it was like, as opposed to the stereotypes we see in t.v. and movies. This Life is in Your Hands rang very true for me: the sometimes reckless idealism, the lack of boundaries, the passionate following of leaders with feet of clay. I think it's a pretty balanced portrayal, with a lot of atten...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

3.5 stars. If you’re going to read this, whatever you do, don’t read the jacket copy. I picked this up because of excellent reviews and for some reason, about halfway through, decided to check out the jacket. Whoever wrote it did the author and this book a huge disservice because there is a major spoiler. Based on the subtitle (“a family undone”) I figured this didn’t have a happy ending, but to have such a huge (and late-breaking) plot point on the cover copy was a big mistake. I hope they chan...more 3.5 stars. If you’re going to read this, whatever you do, don’t read the jacket copy. I picked this up because of excellent reviews and for some reason, about halfway through, decided to check out the jacket. Whoever wrote it did the author and this book a huge disservice because there is a major spoiler. Based on the subtitle (“a family undone”) I figured this didn’t have a happy ending, but to have such a huge (and late-breaking) plot point on the cover copy was a big mistake. I hope they change it for the paperback.

Anyway, this is a memoir of a woman who grew up as a “homesteader.” Her young, idealist parents bought acreage in Maine where they built a sustainable farm. I inadvertently read this during Earth Day and its “live off the land” theme was quite apropos. Apparently the author’s father is well known in the organic farming industry. I’d (unsurprisingly) never heard of him but he was certainly ahead of his time in terms of his views on sustainability, the evils of corporate farming, overuse of oil, and the general green/organic movement. This book included many interesting tidbits about the way of life and green practices in general. At times it got a little too detailed for me, but overall this angle was highly interesting.

There is also a bit of a cautionary tale here. Becoming hyper-focused in one area can lead to major deficiencies in other areas. As idealistic as her parents were, especially her father, they were at times frustrating, even negligent. A way of life trumped everything else including health (mental, physical) and safety. The author did an excellent job of showing how any deficiencies one might have are exacerbated in this kind of environment.

I loved the author’s writing style. Her prose is sharp and interesting and definitely cliché-free. There were some downright breathtaking sentences and turns of phrases. I did think there were issues that never got resolved (I wanted more of an epilogue!) and at times just too many people/ apprentices/ relationships to keep track of. Overall, though, this was a very evocative and unique memoir. (less)

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Jul 26, 2012 Judy rated it 5 of 5 stars

An immensely interesting book about organic farming, homesteading circa 1968, and the dissolution of a marriage. Coleman's writing is superb and draws the reader in so that we live her story as she tells it.

Self-sufficiency is a worthy pursuit. But ideology has its dangers. A contributing factor to the marital breakdown was her parents strict adherence to vegetarianism which undermined their health and made it difficult for them to handle stress and change. Eliot developed thyroid disease and S...more An immensely interesting book about organic farming, homesteading circa 1968, and the dissolution of a marriage. Coleman's writing is superb and draws the reader in so that we live her story as she tells it.

Self-sufficiency is a worthy pursuit. But ideology has its dangers. A contributing factor to the marital breakdown was her parents strict adherence to vegetarianism which undermined their health and made it difficult for them to handle stress and change. Eliot developed thyroid disease and Sue became mentally fragile, whose coping mechanism was to retreat within herself. We read that Eliot got rid of their chickens and later the goats. Man cannot thrive on vegetables alone. Hard physical labor requires animal protein, but Eliot didn't think to add prime ribs to their diet. Not then. In the March 2012 Martha Stewart Living article on Eliot's farm are pictures of pastured chickens. And in an article Eliot wrote in 2009 (at grist.com) he said, "I am a farmer and a meat eater." With experience comes wisdom.

Reviewers have criticized the author/daughter for writing about events before she was born or was too young to remember; however, the memoir format has no strict rules and the family background info is necessary and welcome. Coleman's story ends when she is 9 years old. A child's memories of these years would be few, and blurred, more feelings than facts, and so necessarily her story is an adult's reassembling of time past with the assistance of elegiac imagination.

I don't expect "truth" and exact recall of events in any memoir I read. Memory is unreliable. In fact, memory can be a liar. For 30 years Coleman had misremembered the day of Heidi's death, thinking she had been at the pond, they'd fought and Heidi died, but actually it was the day before when the sisters were at the pond and Heidi was still alive. As recounted in the epilogue, while writing this story Coleman had a conversation with a witness to the tragedy which freed her from the guilt of her imagined crime. Truth, and the search for it, had set her free. (less)

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Aug 08, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

wow! what a book. I mean to be honest it was heavy on farming but Coleman writes in such a way that it grabs you and you can't help but be interested. The author tells her own story of growing up in Maine with her parents who want the simple life. They buy 60 acres of land (at only 3$3 an acre) from a couple who wrote a book on living self sufficiently through organic gardening etc and so begins the challenges of living in a homeade house with no plumbing no electricity and no meat. They are str...more

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Jun 19, 2011 Natasha rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was of great interest to me because I was familiar with the author's father, Eliot Coleman, author of Four Season's Harvest and other organic gardening books, and her childhood neighbors, Helen and Scott Nearing, who wrote The Good Life, a back-to-the-land bible, first published in 1954. The Nearing's writing inspired thousands to journey to Maine to visit them and a few ended up staying. Eliot Coleman and his wife Sue bought neighboring acreage from the Nearnings and set up their own...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Kate Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment, food-issues, memoir

I was intrigued that the Colemans lived near and interacted with Scott and Helen Nearing, whose writings have been influential in my life. Without that connection, I probably wouldn't have read this book. I went to hear Ms. Coleman when she appeared at a local bookstore, which increased my interest in her story.
What a powerful memoir of idealism, hard work, misunderstanding, isolation, the rhythms of the seasons, and tragedy! Her writing style is excellent, better than I expected. Her descriptio...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Happyreader rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bio-and-memoir, planting, progressive-thinking

Helen Nearing was right. The Colemans should not have had children before they realized the stress of homesteading. My God!! The eldest daughter of well-known organic farmer and author Eliot Coleman offers a surprisingly generous account of her early childhood as her parents attempted living off the land in 1970s Maine. An interesting portrait of the vanguard of the organic farming movement. Scott and Helen Nearing, pioneering back-to-the-landers, sell the Colemans the farm next door and serve a...more

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title link	preview: This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone
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