Living In The Country Growing Weird: A Deep Rural Adventure

by Dennis Parks

In 1972, Dennis Parks, a young potter with a promising academic career ahead of him, decided to move to Tuscarora, a near-abandoned mining town in remote northeastern Nevada. Parks and his wife were attracted to Tuscarora's isolation and beautiful setting, and they believed that it might be a healthy environment in which to raise their two small sons. This is Parks' account of his family's life in Tuscarora, a tiny settlement whose population even forty years later numbers fewer than twenty permanent residents. Parks created a pottery school that attracts students from around the world and developed for himself an international reputation as the creator of powerful, innovative works in clay. Meanwhile, he and his family had to master the skills required of those who choose to live in the back country--growing and hunting their own food, renovating or building from scratch the structures they needed for residences or studios, resolving conflicts with neighbors, inventing their own amusements. The transformation from middle-class urbanity to small-town simplicity is, as Parks reveals, a lurching and sometimes hilarious process, and the achievement of self-sufficiency is similarly fraught with unexpected challenges.

168 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

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Reviews

[Sharon]

Recommended by a long-time friend and Elko resident, I was delighted to get to know the Parks family through Dennis' lens and learn more about their molding influence and legacy crafted in the Tuscarora community and beyond. This quick read made the rounds, too. My dad could connect to this memoir on several levels and of course was rather (too?) familiar with the geology of the region.

[Ginger Eager]

Fascinating man, fascinating town. Worth a visit if you're ever in that part of the country.

[Jessica]

Awesome

[Karen Mahtin]

Love me some memoirs, more of a rural than an ag thing if I recall correctly.