Broken Country: Mountains and Memory

by C.L. Rawlins

The author of the highly praised Sky's Witness returns to the Salt River Range of his youth. "To be found", C.L. Rawlins writes, "you must be lost, or lose yourself. ... To be whole, you must know you can be broken". Thus begins his life-altering journey over the mountains. Broken Country is a work of power and understanding, and Rawlins a poet who reminds us that understanding is rarely kind.

Genres: Nonfiction

279 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1996

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the author's story of 2 months in the mountains herding sheep after making the decision to defy the Vietnam draft notice. These were beautiful, lonely, tough, inspiring, painful, uncomfortable months. Witnessing his growth and pain through this time felt like my own adventure. His reaction when his partner felt it necessary to kill a bear mirrored what my reaction would have been. I thought this quote, after the herders had to kill an injured sheep really affected me: "I was bloodied.....How many times in a working life will a rancher perform this unceremonious killing? There are the fat, the ripe, the destined, and also the suffering, the damaged, the lame and the old. A rancher, life a hunter, must kill to live. If there is a sin in that, it occurs in the instant that such killing becomes casual, when there is no longer mystery or dread, when the animal's soul is not attended by some measure of the shared pain, of the common longing against death".
The plant and scenery descriptions and sometimes the poetry were over the top for me, as a "non-poet" so I admit skimming some sections of this. But I really felt like I was with the author on the adventure. His angst was painful as he went through so many challenges, both mental and physical.

[William Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of herding sheep in the mountains was good reading. All the lengthy descriptions of the environment was superfluous. I scanned over most of that.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

If spending two summer months in the western mountains of Wyoming herding sheep sounds like your idea of fun, think again. C. L. Rawlins' day-by-day reminiscences based on a journal he kept in 1973 as cook and horse wrangler for a sheepherder makes no bones about it -- the scenery may be breathtaking, but the work is mostly back breaking and sometimes dangerous. Rawlins, in his early 20s, takes the job as a kind of escape from several personal struggles, including an ambivalence about the war in Vietnam, which has caused a rift with his family. There's also a romance that's gone somewhat haywire.

But almost immediately, the mountains, still under snow in mid-July at the high passes, and the demanding work envelope him in a physical world where his only human companion is a pony-tailed sheepherder, Mitch, not much older than himself. There is wind, rain, sun, hail, more rain, heat, frost, and then snow again before the short summer is over. There are bear, coyotes, hawks and other wildlife. There are walks by moonlight, and reading Homer by candlelight. There's the round of meals to be prepared: bacon, beans, chili, tortillas, currant muffins, rhubarb pie.

They meet a team of Basque herders. Driving in on old logging roads, Rawlins' brother visits until they get on each other nerves. Then his girlfriend visits, and after their heated lovemaking tells him she's seeing someone else. Through it all, the author recounts the emotional ups and downs of a young man unsure of his place in the world, but sure of one thing -- that he has a deep fascination for this "broken country" of mountain ranges, rocky ridges, wildflowers, streams, and meadows. Much of his book is rich with detailed descriptions of carefully observed landscapes. I felt when I finished the book that I had been on a long journey away from civilization.

Writing 20 years later, Rawlins preserves the point of view of his younger self, complete with the youthful excesses that express his angst and exuberance, often told in short personal poems. I recommend this book to anyone interested in nature writing, the mountain West, ranching, and roughing it in the outdoors. Definitely worth adding to a Western nonfiction bookshelf.

[Anastasia Hobbet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I go back to this fine book when I feel lonely for Wyoming, where I lived for five years back when I was a journalist. I fell in love with the place. My first novel is set there. Rawlins' book is an extended prose poem, exploring the land of the mind as much as the land that lies beneath the feet, but both are beautifully evoked.

[Jared]

Awesome book. He describes his experience with clarity and gritty honesty. Poetic and smoothly simple, yet he develops a very complex world which he is surrounded by.