Circling Back: Chronicle of a Texas River Valley

by Joe C. Truett, Wayne Franklin (Foreword)

"There was so much space." These words epitomize ecologist Joe Truett's boyhood memories of the Angelina River valley in East Texas. Years and miles later, back home for the funeral of his grandfather, Truett began a long meditation on the world Corbett Graham had known and he himself had glimpsed, a now-vanished world where wild hogs and countless other animals rustled through the leaves, cows ate pinewoods grass instead of corn, oaks and hickories and longleaf pines were untouched by the corporate ax, and the river flowed freely. Truett's meditation resulted in this clear-sighted portrait of a place over time, its layers revealed by his love and care and curiosity.
Truett celebrates his family's heritage and the unspoiled natural world of the Piney Woods without nostalgia. He recreates an older, simpler, more worthy age, but he knows that we have lost touch with it because we wanted he laments the loss but understands it. What makes his prose so moving and so redeeming is this precise combination of honesty and sorrow, overlaid by a quiet passion for both the natural and the human worlds.

Genres: Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Circling Back" is a memoir of the family and of the country where his family lived. He emphasizes the connection to the land that his grandfather and great grandfather had. And mourns the loss of the undeveloped land as much as he mourns the loss of his grandfather.

He spends a lot of time trying to look at the land through the eyes of his grand parents, and adds some of his own knowledge along the way to supplement what he learned from them.

He also spends some time looking at the history of the historic before Columbus tribes, and the expansion of the English and Spanish, their effects upon the local tribes. I enjoyed the descriptions of the hardwood and pine forests, and the ebb and flow of animals and nature before people really started impacting the land, esp. the logging and the creation of the reservoir.

Overall pretty good, the author writes with an easy style.

[Panayoti Kelaidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book on many levels: compelling personal history, but more importantly, a case study in how we have transformed our landscape from a rich, biodiverse paradise that sustained communities of self supporting farmers into wall-to-wall botanical slum of pine plantations and corporate farms all for the sake of creature comforts and convenience, but sacrificing just a few things in the process: our independence, nature, wild flowers, wild animals, our soul and perhaps our future.

[Panayoti Kelaidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

In its own way, this book is as monumental and portentous as "Silent Spring" or "Omnivore's Dilemma"--the devastating subject that it focuses upon is not insecticides, nor what we eat, but the landscape that we inhabit obliviously. Truett quietly delineates how in just a few generations we've gone about fouling our nest. It is a compelling personal history, but more importantly, a case study in the manner in which we have transformed our landscape from a rich, biodiverse paradise that nurtured communities of self-sustaining farmers into a wall-to-wall botanical slum of pine plantations and corporate farms all for the sake of creature comforts and convenience. We have sacrificed just a few things in the process: our independence, nature herself, wild flowers, wild animals, our soul and perhaps our future. An incredibly multi-layered, brilliantly written book that has not yet found its rightful place in the canon. I believe the prose style and content are such that this book merits a place quite high up the shelf along with Thoreau and the two other crusaders mentioned in my first sentence: it's a crying shame this book is so obscure. Buy it! Read it and share it!

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Works his way through the history of a piece of land he grew up on. Mostly recent history with some about the first people and then explorers into the region. Interesting, ties together well with his family providing a link for the majority of recent history. It does address the stress to the environment of modern living; and the last note is about hope (of recovery).

[Stormy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting -- so similar to my own family's chronicle.