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Breaking Clean
An astonishing literary the true story of a remarkable woman's life in the contemporary American West, where the lessons she learned carried her through blizzards, devastating prairie fires, and extreme isolation.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 10, 2002
53 people are currently reading
1045 people want to read
About the author
Judy Blunt
9 books14 followersJudy Blunt was raised on a cattle ranch in a remote area of Phillips County, Montana, USA near Regina, Montana, south of Malta, Montana. In 1986 she moved with her three small children to Missoula, Montana to attend the University of Montana.
She later turned the tales of her ranch life into an award-winning memoir, titled Breaking Clean (Knopf 2002), which won Whiting Writers' Award, the PEN/Jerard Fund Award, Mountains and Plains Nonfiction Book Award, Willa Cather Literary Award, and was one of The New York Times' Notable Books. She received a Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship and a Montana Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Her essays and poems have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Big Sky Journal and Oprah Magazine.
Blunt received her M.F.A. from the University of Montana in 1994. Blunt currently resides in Missoula, Montana where she is an associate professor at the University of Montana.
She later turned the tales of her ranch life into an award-winning memoir, titled Breaking Clean (Knopf 2002), which won Whiting Writers' Award, the PEN/Jerard Fund Award, Mountains and Plains Nonfiction Book Award, Willa Cather Literary Award, and was one of The New York Times' Notable Books. She received a Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship and a Montana Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Her essays and poems have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Big Sky Journal and Oprah Magazine.
Blunt received her M.F.A. from the University of Montana in 1994. Blunt currently resides in Missoula, Montana where she is an associate professor at the University of Montana.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews
May 26, 2022
May 25, 11pm ~~ Review asap.
May 26, noon-thirty ~~ From the back cover:
"On a ranch miles from nowhere, Judy Blunt grew up with cattle and snakes, outhouses and isolation, epic blizzards and devastating prairie fires. She also grew up with a set of rules and roles prescribed to her sex long before she was born, a chafing set of strictures she eventually had no choice but to flee, taking along three children and leaving behind a confused husband and the only life she's ever known. Gritty, lyrical, unsentimental and wise, Breaking Clean is at once informed by the myths of the West and powerful enough to break them down.
The first chapter of this book made me wonder if I would keep going. It was made up of short bits that seemed clumped together in order to provide a broad outline of what was to come next. I was sincerely hoping that the rest of the book would not be formatted in the same manner, and luckily it was not. Once you get past that first chapter, you are caught up in the tension of living a life that does not fit the person you feel yourself to be.
This is not a cheerful book. It is raw and mostly sad; there are episodes described that will make you wonder how she managed to survive. She did not want to grow up physically, to the point of attempting to do away with her budding breasts. She had intense emotional stress and no one she felt she could talk with about her issues. She never seemed to be a happy person, and when she married quite young and found herself trapped in the type of life she had never wanted, she sank into a deeper depression than ever before.
I had mixed emotions about our author. I could identify with her issues; all women have to face them in some form more than once in life. And I could understand her silence even while I was mentally urging her to go talk to Someone, Anyone about the problems she was dealing with. Many women tend to just clam up, to not make waves, to keep ourselves to ourselves. Until the day we can simply no longer continue. How sad that so many of us spend so many years trying to fit into a pattern made for some fictional Ideal Woman, modeled on everyone else's expectations.
Judy Blunt had to spend too many years pretending to be something she never wanted to be. I hope she has now discovered her own inner Ideal Woman and has found the peace and joy she deserves.
May 26, noon-thirty ~~ From the back cover:
"On a ranch miles from nowhere, Judy Blunt grew up with cattle and snakes, outhouses and isolation, epic blizzards and devastating prairie fires. She also grew up with a set of rules and roles prescribed to her sex long before she was born, a chafing set of strictures she eventually had no choice but to flee, taking along three children and leaving behind a confused husband and the only life she's ever known. Gritty, lyrical, unsentimental and wise, Breaking Clean is at once informed by the myths of the West and powerful enough to break them down.
The first chapter of this book made me wonder if I would keep going. It was made up of short bits that seemed clumped together in order to provide a broad outline of what was to come next. I was sincerely hoping that the rest of the book would not be formatted in the same manner, and luckily it was not. Once you get past that first chapter, you are caught up in the tension of living a life that does not fit the person you feel yourself to be.
This is not a cheerful book. It is raw and mostly sad; there are episodes described that will make you wonder how she managed to survive. She did not want to grow up physically, to the point of attempting to do away with her budding breasts. She had intense emotional stress and no one she felt she could talk with about her issues. She never seemed to be a happy person, and when she married quite young and found herself trapped in the type of life she had never wanted, she sank into a deeper depression than ever before.
I had mixed emotions about our author. I could identify with her issues; all women have to face them in some form more than once in life. And I could understand her silence even while I was mentally urging her to go talk to Someone, Anyone about the problems she was dealing with. Many women tend to just clam up, to not make waves, to keep ourselves to ourselves. Until the day we can simply no longer continue. How sad that so many of us spend so many years trying to fit into a pattern made for some fictional Ideal Woman, modeled on everyone else's expectations.
Judy Blunt had to spend too many years pretending to be something she never wanted to be. I hope she has now discovered her own inner Ideal Woman and has found the peace and joy she deserves.
December 6, 2007
Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean continued my recent trend of reading books about the West, and like most of the Western authors I've picked up recently, Blunt tells her story in a sparse, no-holds-barred way that I both appreciate and identify with. She takes it one step further, though, making explicit her thoughts and feelings about the role of women in the West in a way that other writers (Annie Proulx and Pam Houston come to mind) haven't. The book is simply fabulous.
Breaking Clean is a fairly chronological retelling of Blunt's life growing up on a secluded Montana ranch, her marriage to neighboring rancher and life as part of an increasingly corporate ranching culture, and her eventual decision to leave the land and the lifestyle that makes up the only thing she has ever known. Skipping entire years and dedicating multiple pages to describing in painstaking detail the seemingly small events that her memories turn around (including a multiple page account of pulling a calf that made me cry with its honesty and gorgeousness), Blunt is less interested in a literal retelling of the events of her life and more in sharing with readers both her visceral love for the land and the lifestyle on which she grew up and her crippling disappointment and rage at the role she was forced to take as a woman in that lifestyle and on that land.
Blunt makes no secret of her feminism, nor does she shy away from idealizing the strong backs and stiff upper lips of the women around who she came of age--women who would never call themselves feminists. She sees, at a young age and increasingly as she grows up, the ways in which these women are short-shrifted. She takes on the problems of patriarchal land and family management and the traditional movement of family ranches from father to son head-on, calling them what they are and speaking with clarity about the role of these practices in her eventual decision to take her children away from the land she loves.
Breaking Clean is just the right mixture of thought and action, switching seamlessly from Blunt's internal monologue to the physical reality of the land around her and back again. Blunt's version of self-reliant feminism, invented from equal parts 1970s coming of age and a lifetime of exposure to the old world customs and near superhuman strength of ranching women, may well be the most comfortable and reasonable one I've ever observed. Even if you don't want to read Blunt's book for the feminism, though, you should read it for the stories. Her retelling of the great blizzard that plagued her family's ranch in the early 1960s, freezing most of the cattle to death, her baby sister facing off with an Angus bull, and her own uncomfortable move from a one-room school house to high school in "town" are worth the read in and of themselves. Blunt is both a fantastic theorist and memoirist and first-rate storyteller, and it doesn't get much better than that.
Breaking Clean is a fairly chronological retelling of Blunt's life growing up on a secluded Montana ranch, her marriage to neighboring rancher and life as part of an increasingly corporate ranching culture, and her eventual decision to leave the land and the lifestyle that makes up the only thing she has ever known. Skipping entire years and dedicating multiple pages to describing in painstaking detail the seemingly small events that her memories turn around (including a multiple page account of pulling a calf that made me cry with its honesty and gorgeousness), Blunt is less interested in a literal retelling of the events of her life and more in sharing with readers both her visceral love for the land and the lifestyle on which she grew up and her crippling disappointment and rage at the role she was forced to take as a woman in that lifestyle and on that land.
Blunt makes no secret of her feminism, nor does she shy away from idealizing the strong backs and stiff upper lips of the women around who she came of age--women who would never call themselves feminists. She sees, at a young age and increasingly as she grows up, the ways in which these women are short-shrifted. She takes on the problems of patriarchal land and family management and the traditional movement of family ranches from father to son head-on, calling them what they are and speaking with clarity about the role of these practices in her eventual decision to take her children away from the land she loves.
Breaking Clean is just the right mixture of thought and action, switching seamlessly from Blunt's internal monologue to the physical reality of the land around her and back again. Blunt's version of self-reliant feminism, invented from equal parts 1970s coming of age and a lifetime of exposure to the old world customs and near superhuman strength of ranching women, may well be the most comfortable and reasonable one I've ever observed. Even if you don't want to read Blunt's book for the feminism, though, you should read it for the stories. Her retelling of the great blizzard that plagued her family's ranch in the early 1960s, freezing most of the cattle to death, her baby sister facing off with an Angus bull, and her own uncomfortable move from a one-room school house to high school in "town" are worth the read in and of themselves. Blunt is both a fantastic theorist and memoirist and first-rate storyteller, and it doesn't get much better than that.
March 31, 2008
Well, I actually live on a prairie ranch 50 miles from the closest town, so Judy Blunt’s memoir certainly resonates with me. Her insights are written with an almost poetic prose and her voice conveys great strength. I envy her ability to articulate with such clarity the complex web of human relations that are so hardly shaped by the prairie environment and history. The struggle – and pain - to conform to gender roles; the isolation of long winters and muddy spring roads; the distrust of anything new and urban are all still too real in the communities around me. I think I will suggest this book to my bookclub, as an outsider – anyone with a foreign accent will forever be an outsider around here – I am curious to hear what the “locals” will say about this memoir.
September 7, 2010
I saw so much of myself, my family & community in this book. Powerful, thoughtfully written, brought me to tears & laughter on the same page. Blunt captures the voice of the ranchwoman perfectly. This book forced me to look at the uneasy pull between wanting to emulate your grandmother's grace & strength & the desire to leave behind the ranch way of life that limits women's choices & voice.
May 25, 2019
One woman's survival in Northern Montana. The "Hi-line" as it's usually called.
A third generation to the area,she became a wife to a man at 30 when she was 18.
Land was always passed on to the eldest son, anyone else was empty handed. A woman could never own the land.
She never felt like she fitted in. When she had to answer to her in-laws from arranging her cupboards
and buying groceries. Also smoking was a no no. She continued for 30 years then divorced her husband.
This book appeals to all woman.
A third generation to the area,she became a wife to a man at 30 when she was 18.
Land was always passed on to the eldest son, anyone else was empty handed. A woman could never own the land.
She never felt like she fitted in. When she had to answer to her in-laws from arranging her cupboards
and buying groceries. Also smoking was a no no. She continued for 30 years then divorced her husband.
This book appeals to all woman.
November 30, 2009
I have been on a bit of Western kick lately. I heard about this memoir from an article on books of the New West. Two of the five books I absolutely loved (Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge and James Galvin's The Meadow) and this was the only one of the other three that the library had. So I gave it a go.
Since I read about it alongside the two previously mentioned books, I was probably constantly comparing them. And this book simply did not stand up to them. As far as memoirs go, it was OK. Blunt tells about her life growing up on a Montana ranch in the 60s and 70s. It is fascinating to read about a life so different from mine. And rural Montana in that time really feels like the 40s and 50s as it was so remote from any other part of the country.
For me, what kept her story from being really good, or even great, was that she did not do much to situate herself in relation to major societal and cultural issues. She talks about some experiences with the women's right, the shift from family ranching to corporate ranching, being a single mother, and more, but after teasingly great anecdotes she would just drift off to another anecdote. And so the book felt like scene after scene of her experiences.
Of course I am aware that is how life works. It does not have cultural and temporal continuity all of the time. But I believe adding that in is what separates mediocre nonfiction like Blunt's memoir from really great nonfiction like Refuge and other works like it.
Since I read about it alongside the two previously mentioned books, I was probably constantly comparing them. And this book simply did not stand up to them. As far as memoirs go, it was OK. Blunt tells about her life growing up on a Montana ranch in the 60s and 70s. It is fascinating to read about a life so different from mine. And rural Montana in that time really feels like the 40s and 50s as it was so remote from any other part of the country.
For me, what kept her story from being really good, or even great, was that she did not do much to situate herself in relation to major societal and cultural issues. She talks about some experiences with the women's right, the shift from family ranching to corporate ranching, being a single mother, and more, but after teasingly great anecdotes she would just drift off to another anecdote. And so the book felt like scene after scene of her experiences.
Of course I am aware that is how life works. It does not have cultural and temporal continuity all of the time. But I believe adding that in is what separates mediocre nonfiction like Blunt's memoir from really great nonfiction like Refuge and other works like it.
January 31, 2013
This book is fantastic. It was the first time I read a memoir that truly moved me and I have not forgotten the story after all these years. In fact, I think of this author often. I grew up in Montana, but not the area she describes, and I think it's a fascinating tale for anyone from anywhere. I loved the tone she took to describe her experiences and how she processed them and the actions she felt she had to take. I think I read later that she became a professor of writing (U of M in Missoula?) and I always wished I could have taken a class from her. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to read a very interesting perspective from a very outnumbered and unstudied corner of the world, and for anyone who enjoys great writing.
November 25, 2013
I had this book sitting on my shelves for quite some time because I wasn't sure if I could handle reading it or not. This back covers mention growing up in a world and a culture where women are not viewed as equal, which strikes a bit too close to home for me in some ways. I am glad I was finally willing to pick it up and dive in, though. The author is quite gifted in painting with words the world of the prairie out on the Highline in Montana and the joys and struggles of growing up in a hand-to-mouth existence.
My mother grew up on a dry farm in South Central Alberta and in reading this book I felt like I came closer to understanding some of her stories from her childhood than ever before. In fact, in some ways I came closer to understanding my mother than ever before, even though I don't know how similar her experiences were to those of the author. The answer to that is probably both "very similar" and "not similar at all". I can see the frustration and the loneliness of being different and wanting more and never being taught the words for any of that or feeling like there was the freedom to express it. I know my memories of the prairies of Montana and Alberta colored my perceptions of the book -- but I think in the future my memories of the book will color my perceptions of the prairies of Montana and Alberta.
I am actually sending this to my mother to read because I think she will enjoy it. It might even inspire her to write more of her own memories.
My mother grew up on a dry farm in South Central Alberta and in reading this book I felt like I came closer to understanding some of her stories from her childhood than ever before. In fact, in some ways I came closer to understanding my mother than ever before, even though I don't know how similar her experiences were to those of the author. The answer to that is probably both "very similar" and "not similar at all". I can see the frustration and the loneliness of being different and wanting more and never being taught the words for any of that or feeling like there was the freedom to express it. I know my memories of the prairies of Montana and Alberta colored my perceptions of the book -- but I think in the future my memories of the book will color my perceptions of the prairies of Montana and Alberta.
I am actually sending this to my mother to read because I think she will enjoy it. It might even inspire her to write more of her own memories.
March 28, 2021
Breathatking - what an amazing author and beautiful story. I read this for the second time (the dates of the first reading disappeared) and I was just as entranced with the story, admired the author even more. Read the last section, though, and you’ll never eat beef again (I was aware of the awful cruelty and quit eating meat 3 decades ago).
May 29, 2018
Wonderful writing in this memoir! Blunt takes the reader right inside her life--and her mind--and the journey is sometimes painful, the emotion raw. If I had any complaint it would be that the telling is a little fragmented with experiences related out of chronological order which had me needing to go back to read the first chapter or so again after finishing the book.
This book really packs a punch and made me think; I definitely won't be forgetting it any time soon. 3.5 to 4 stars
This book really packs a punch and made me think; I definitely won't be forgetting it any time soon. 3.5 to 4 stars
April 19, 2021
I met Judy Blunt when I was in grad school in Montana. I was there when she wrote the amazing essay, "Breaking Clean," that became the inspiration and soul of this book. It is reproduced in its entirety in the front pages, and the book is basically the essay expanded. I loved this, all of it. I've met Judy a number of times now, lucky for me, and find her to be a remarkable writer and person. Almost every writing workshop I teach involves this book.
August 3, 2008
Judy Blunt’s memoir Breaking Clean is a crisp, sharp, enjoyable read. Blunt carries her reader through a wide range of emotions as she travels through her youth in Montana. Her writing is engaging in its simplicity. Her subject matter, in many ways, familiar.
Though few of us have experienced Big Sky country and all of the harsh realities that go with that life, especially as a child, we have all experienced isolation, disappointment, parental abandonment, and rebellions in one way or another. We have all experienced a sense of different-ness in our worlds, a sense of being disconnected from those to whom we should feel most connected. Or at least I did. Blunt captures the emotion of her turbulent youth eloquently.
Blunt carries her readers through the experience of her youth and while one is given the impression that the author has had to distance herself from this lifestyle it is deeply ingrained in who she is. Her rural youth defined her adult life. The life she lives today seems to always be seen through the lens of where she came from. In her discussion of feminism, and she sees herself as a feminist, Blunt writes of the women of her youth, whom she does not view as feminists, “I grew up admiring a community of women whose strength and capacity for work I have yet to see equaled, true partners in the labor of farming and ranching.” (153). She goes on in the next passages to flesh out these women as able to endure anything, in silence. While Blunt refuses to be silent she endeavors to carry forward the ideal of enduring.
In the end, this is a lifestyle from which she fled, it is clear that it is this lifestyle that has shaped her views. The text is a vivid reminder of how we come to be who we are, by facing and owning who we were and from whence we came.
Though few of us have experienced Big Sky country and all of the harsh realities that go with that life, especially as a child, we have all experienced isolation, disappointment, parental abandonment, and rebellions in one way or another. We have all experienced a sense of different-ness in our worlds, a sense of being disconnected from those to whom we should feel most connected. Or at least I did. Blunt captures the emotion of her turbulent youth eloquently.
Blunt carries her readers through the experience of her youth and while one is given the impression that the author has had to distance herself from this lifestyle it is deeply ingrained in who she is. Her rural youth defined her adult life. The life she lives today seems to always be seen through the lens of where she came from. In her discussion of feminism, and she sees herself as a feminist, Blunt writes of the women of her youth, whom she does not view as feminists, “I grew up admiring a community of women whose strength and capacity for work I have yet to see equaled, true partners in the labor of farming and ranching.” (153). She goes on in the next passages to flesh out these women as able to endure anything, in silence. While Blunt refuses to be silent she endeavors to carry forward the ideal of enduring.
In the end, this is a lifestyle from which she fled, it is clear that it is this lifestyle that has shaped her views. The text is a vivid reminder of how we come to be who we are, by facing and owning who we were and from whence we came.
June 1, 2013
Judy Blunt was born in mid-century northern Montana, a hardscrabble land where men held power and women put up and shut up. Breaking Clean is a haunting series of essays about Blunt's childhood and marriage in this place of stark beauty and isolation - a place she eventually left to find her own voice and her value as a human being.
I read an article in which Blunt stated that her book was not necessarily about her journey away from ranch life, but rather about her struggle to stay. Her strength, courage, and character are impressive; her personality is reflected through the clear honest writing, and the book carries an echo of sadness and desolation. The incredible effort to survive natural disaster and the lack of resources are never over-dramatized, simply presented as the way things were in this particular time and place, which makes them all the more impactful. The essays are laced with the sharp thin current of her own resentment and grief at being overlooked and undervalued simply because she was a woman, an item of property rather than a partner in life.
I loved Blunt's writing, and this book will stay with me for a long time.
I read an article in which Blunt stated that her book was not necessarily about her journey away from ranch life, but rather about her struggle to stay. Her strength, courage, and character are impressive; her personality is reflected through the clear honest writing, and the book carries an echo of sadness and desolation. The incredible effort to survive natural disaster and the lack of resources are never over-dramatized, simply presented as the way things were in this particular time and place, which makes them all the more impactful. The essays are laced with the sharp thin current of her own resentment and grief at being overlooked and undervalued simply because she was a woman, an item of property rather than a partner in life.
I loved Blunt's writing, and this book will stay with me for a long time.
March 10, 2019
This was an incredible memoir that took me on a roller-coaster of emotions. The heart-breaking story of the 1964 blizzard in "Salvage" is by itself justification for reading the book. In "The Reckoning" when the (under-aged) author persisted in seeing a man her parents had forbidden her to see, I roared with laughter at the point when they were pulled over by the police, neither of them noticing that the person who rode shotgun in the cop car was her mother! I growled with irritation in "Learning the Ropes" with her in-laws' intrusions into her home life as a newly married woman; and I wept, needing to stop several times to wipe my eyes in order to continue reading, when she and her husband had to take their daughter to the hospital one rainy night. Thank you, Judy Blunt, for such a wonderful book. Thank you also for providing me a perspective of the people who choose this sort of life...I'm afraid I was among the people who viewed the "people living this marginal lifestyle" through the romantic glasses of a city person.
July 29, 2018
Completely arresting. I was engrossed from the first page by this tale of rural resilience. The narrative is extraordinarily detailed (how can the author remember everything she's described is beyond me) and written in language that matches the toughness of her upbringing. Blunt also offers a harsh look at the culture of her ranching community, with honesty about its sexism and racism, its narrow viewpoints, and its willfully contrary isolation. But what stuck with me was the book's enthralling description of ranch life and the merciless lands of northeastern Montana. (Also so many terrifying/fascinating cow AND human mutilation stories!!!!) Highly recommend!
September 28, 2020
One of the best books I have read in a long time. Belongs in the literature section
February 26, 2021
Excellent writing from a woman who was a tough spirited, independent ranch wife in Montana. It's the account of her journey in a culture dominated by men's expectations and her eventual departure to be able to claim her own destiny. I had a personal interest in this book because I lived in the closest town to the ranch where the story is based during one of the bitterest winters on record.
February 20, 2012
I had a hard time with this book - and I had a lot of questions afterwards. Why couldn't she be happy where she was? Why couldn't she make her husband understand and treat her like a partner? Ok - if I must be honest- I think her LACK of communication was a huge part of it. And mabye that's the point - the "voice" she talks about finding took her that long. She shut out her husband from the beginning - couldn't talk to him, couldn't stand up for herself with the in-laws, etc.
I wonder about her kids now. What happened to John? Was he able to ever stand up to Frank? What about her twin siblings Gail and Gary and how Judy makes it seem like their birth changed life forever (it seems that she is implying for the worse?)?
I think for the older generation - they TOTALLY understand the inequality that came with the rural lifestyle in the 70's. I however, believe that there were other families who communicated with each other, had fun with their kids, and were happy doing so.
I think the story of Frank "retiring" is more common than not for that generation.
I'm a generation younger - and have a hard time thinking a woman would live like this and not talk to her husband - but Blunt talks a lot about her childhood and coming of age - and she doesn't do a lot of talking even then. Parents seem to ignore a lot of what is going on - and it seems like it is excused to the rural lifestyle - but I know not all raised in the west went through this.
I also wondered about God and found it tragic that there was no hope through Jesus in this tale. Her one introduction to God was a bizzare childhood catholic mass.
There were 3 happy parts for me. 1. the thought of her mother pregnant with her enjoying the quiet of where she lived that summer, books perched on her belly, a horse reaching in the window for a snack. 2. The story of Gail in the pasture with the angus bull. 3. the way the community came together to see she and John across the nearly impassable muddy roads when their daughter was sick and they HAD to go to the hospital. I pictured the lights of the pickups at the end of each road that they could see as they came to the top of a hill looking out at the road they must traverse. Each set of lights there ready to pull them out if needed, and then going back home as soon as they passed safely by. This is a fabulous picture of what living in a rural area can be - a friendly network of people who know the only other people you have are each other - you look out for each other.
The writing style was really interesting. She keeps you going because she states right at the beginning the "breaking clean" part of divorce. And then goes backward and forwards and it is a really neat style. So there isn't really any wondering what ultimately happened - but why.
I wonder about her kids now. What happened to John? Was he able to ever stand up to Frank? What about her twin siblings Gail and Gary and how Judy makes it seem like their birth changed life forever (it seems that she is implying for the worse?)?
I think for the older generation - they TOTALLY understand the inequality that came with the rural lifestyle in the 70's. I however, believe that there were other families who communicated with each other, had fun with their kids, and were happy doing so.
I think the story of Frank "retiring" is more common than not for that generation.
I'm a generation younger - and have a hard time thinking a woman would live like this and not talk to her husband - but Blunt talks a lot about her childhood and coming of age - and she doesn't do a lot of talking even then. Parents seem to ignore a lot of what is going on - and it seems like it is excused to the rural lifestyle - but I know not all raised in the west went through this.
I also wondered about God and found it tragic that there was no hope through Jesus in this tale. Her one introduction to God was a bizzare childhood catholic mass.
There were 3 happy parts for me. 1. the thought of her mother pregnant with her enjoying the quiet of where she lived that summer, books perched on her belly, a horse reaching in the window for a snack. 2. The story of Gail in the pasture with the angus bull. 3. the way the community came together to see she and John across the nearly impassable muddy roads when their daughter was sick and they HAD to go to the hospital. I pictured the lights of the pickups at the end of each road that they could see as they came to the top of a hill looking out at the road they must traverse. Each set of lights there ready to pull them out if needed, and then going back home as soon as they passed safely by. This is a fabulous picture of what living in a rural area can be - a friendly network of people who know the only other people you have are each other - you look out for each other.
The writing style was really interesting. She keeps you going because she states right at the beginning the "breaking clean" part of divorce. And then goes backward and forwards and it is a really neat style. So there isn't really any wondering what ultimately happened - but why.
June 5, 2008
Stories are the lessons of a year or a decade or a life broken into chunks you can swallow. But the heart of a story lies in the act of telling, the passing on. (pg. 136) - Too bad Ms. Blunt did not take her own words to heart.
Like [a previous reder], I was hoping for more about life in the Midwest;Having read this book, I am unsure exactly what it was meant to convey.
Growing up in a small town, I could relate to her discriptions of the "eyes" that saw your every move, even when your parents were nowhere to be seen. The draw to the "city" was also something I remember. And, I felt a kinship to her "tomboy" ways and her "neutral face" that came across as aloof, and cold. But, from the bulk of the story, what I got was a seemingly self-pitying,woe-is-me middle-child who laid much blame on her "hard, and strict" mother, her "distant and unaccessible" father and the lonesome, un-forgiving praerie winds and mud. (and, if she would have used the term "gumbo roads" just once more, I would have tossed this book against the wall!) Puh-lease!! Ms. Blunt seemed more in need of a psychiatrist, than a publisher.
Like I said, parts of this story resonated with me, forcing me to read on, while other, and more prevelant, parts made me wonder WHY I was reading on!!
Just not my cup of tea, I suppose
Like [a previous reder], I was hoping for more about life in the Midwest;Having read this book, I am unsure exactly what it was meant to convey.
Growing up in a small town, I could relate to her discriptions of the "eyes" that saw your every move, even when your parents were nowhere to be seen. The draw to the "city" was also something I remember. And, I felt a kinship to her "tomboy" ways and her "neutral face" that came across as aloof, and cold. But, from the bulk of the story, what I got was a seemingly self-pitying,woe-is-me middle-child who laid much blame on her "hard, and strict" mother, her "distant and unaccessible" father and the lonesome, un-forgiving praerie winds and mud. (and, if she would have used the term "gumbo roads" just once more, I would have tossed this book against the wall!) Puh-lease!! Ms. Blunt seemed more in need of a psychiatrist, than a publisher.
Like I said, parts of this story resonated with me, forcing me to read on, while other, and more prevelant, parts made me wonder WHY I was reading on!!
Just not my cup of tea, I suppose
April 26, 2011
...I feel like the author has ADHD. She is all over the place and it's hard to keep track of events.
Breaking Clean is about the authors life growing up on a remote farm in Montana set in the 1950's. Her hardships, poverty, isolation, education, and returning to farm and isolation as a young married wife.
I read that Judy Blunt was gaining recognition much like Frank McCourt with her style of writing, her story, and similarities of poverty. Unfortunately, I cannot agree. The only similarity they shared was growing up with poverty. Frank McCourt was truly a story teller in they way he shared his life with us.
What I did enjoy about this story was the description of the landscape much like another book I read called Where Rivers Change Directions. At times it took on a calming presence in the story. As well as her love of the animals and what they meant on a producing farm. What I didn't enjoy was her abruptly ending a topic to start another one often not finishing her train of thought.
Oh well.
Breaking Clean is about the authors life growing up on a remote farm in Montana set in the 1950's. Her hardships, poverty, isolation, education, and returning to farm and isolation as a young married wife.
I read that Judy Blunt was gaining recognition much like Frank McCourt with her style of writing, her story, and similarities of poverty. Unfortunately, I cannot agree. The only similarity they shared was growing up with poverty. Frank McCourt was truly a story teller in they way he shared his life with us.
What I did enjoy about this story was the description of the landscape much like another book I read called Where Rivers Change Directions. At times it took on a calming presence in the story. As well as her love of the animals and what they meant on a producing farm. What I didn't enjoy was her abruptly ending a topic to start another one often not finishing her train of thought.
Oh well.
March 24, 2025
I first read this book back around 2012 when the author spoke at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. This book has always seemed such a testament to the author's strength and her own ability to be vulnerable and real with her readers.
Growing up, our small town was surrounded by ranchers and I came to see the life as incredibly hard on humans and animals, while also recognizing that women were in an impossible position. Blunt lays bare the inequities built into a system where you will never rise above your sex roles while not painting herself as a victim in any sense.
Highly recommend, though there are absolutely triggers as far as animals being mistreated - perhaps not mistreated according to ranching standards as you really do have to have a bit of a hard heart to ranch, but for the layperson you do not need to go in ready for those hard moments.
Growing up, our small town was surrounded by ranchers and I came to see the life as incredibly hard on humans and animals, while also recognizing that women were in an impossible position. Blunt lays bare the inequities built into a system where you will never rise above your sex roles while not painting herself as a victim in any sense.
Highly recommend, though there are absolutely triggers as far as animals being mistreated - perhaps not mistreated according to ranching standards as you really do have to have a bit of a hard heart to ranch, but for the layperson you do not need to go in ready for those hard moments.
November 19, 2008
Judy Blunt was a third generation ranch wife in Montana. She literally broke free of that life in her 30's, moved her kids to Missoula to get her degree and is now a writer there. The writing is clean and frank. It gave me a very vivid image of farm life and I actually feel like I learned some things about animals and crops (or learned enough to know I need to learn). She describes that life so well but without judgment - it just is. It helped me understand how hard small farmers work and how soft we've become as a society and how disconnected from the land we are. The book can be put down and picked back up without major disruption, as it's like a memoir. It made an interesting co-read with my other book, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kinsolver.
July 15, 2009
I loved this book. She's a great writer, and every time I put the book down I couldn't wait to pick it up again. Another reviewer commented on her many skills (training horses, birthing calves, growing a huge vegetable garden and canning, etc., all while raising three children) Often the cruel truth of what it's like for humans and animals to live in a such a harsh physical climate and in such an unyielding social structure would leave me feeling sad and bruised, but then her adventures and triumphs would exhilarate me. Much as I wanted to hear more about her escape from the ranch, I admire that she respected her husband's dignity and privacy by revealing little of their personal relationship. I would love to read more from this author.
December 8, 2015
Vivid memoir of the author's early years in a third generation homesteading family in Montana. The natural environment, replete with blizzards, fires and extreme isolation are the dramatic canvas for growing up and coming to terms with the need to break clean of the her family's heritage and a woman's place in ranching. Poignant portrayals of strong men, women and children in constrained roles and of the animals that are relied on for food and survival. Highly recommended for those interested in memoir, gender roles and the rugged West, a way of life that seems of centuries past.
June 27, 2009
Yet another of a combination to which I'm strongly drawn: excellent descriptions of place mixed with a strong woman who overcomes adversity. Fantastic and vivid descriptions of events. She's a marvelous story teller.
December 29, 2021
Very interesting memoir about a life I had never read about- prairie child-to-woman in modern times.
May 15, 2020
There are some absolutely remarkable passages in this memoir--the blizzard and the cattle in the beginning of the narrative (that alone is worth the price of the book), driving the cement mud roads to the hospital, the birthing of the calf towards the memoir's end. But this memoir is unbalanced--after the initial salvo, the next 175 pages or so are just one anecdotal childhood story after another--pretty standard fare of the frustrated "tom boy" girl in the family--simply change the setting and we've read this kind of part-nostalgia-part-feminist manifesto many times before. The actual descriptions of the ranch and ranch life in Montana are outstanding, as is her recounting of the grittier side of ranch life. But then she's married, and BOOM there are three kids, and then BOOM she's jettisoned herself off the ranch and into college. That story (along with the excellent text about the grandmother's recipe book for disease treatment, tar and turpentine--good grief what they endured) would have interested me far more than small town/ranch life pre-teen hijinks. (I also realized after I'd finished the book my paperback edition was minus the notorious typewriter scene that later editions of the memoir left out for legal reasons relating to truth. Ahem.)
My real issue with the memoir is the narrator (as she's depicted) is a pretty angry individual--not just rebellious and frustrated, but downright raging. There's a very strong and fundamentally irrational sense of her entitlement--why shouldn't SHE inherit the ranch over her brother (her elder brother, let's not forget)--and why can't she have equal say in how her husband's family's ranch works--and why didn't she go to college when her two other siblings did (it was clear to me this was the narrator's choice, not imposed upon her). So what we have is an angry young woman railing against nearly everything and everyone instead of looking at herself and her situation and using her intelligence and resourcefulness to find her way out--this was the 1970s, not the 1870s or even the 1950s. Women had limited choices, but they had choices. Yet this narrator continued to make bad choices. That scene of the "territory marking" and window breaking...good grief, that was disturbing--and the whiskey didn't excuse such overt destruction and violence to self and property. It was the act of someone who KNEW she'd be helped and bailed out--and that's what cinched my dislike of her as a character. She had a safety net. Many of us do not.
I make these judgments as a reader with a measure of confidence because I'm not that much younger than this author. I didn't marry at 18, I went to college, and I worked my jobs to own my own mountain home and ranch. Granted, it's not a working ranch, and it's only 40 acres and not 15,000, but it's my piece of property, purchased without the aid of any husband or father or demand for entitlement. That's what's missing in this book. That she could have seen her way out of this small town ranching life earlier, but she chose not to, instead rebelling by marrying this older guy, then having three kids with him, before finally deciding to make her own way. There's too much railing when no railing was warranted--she had choices. It just took her a very long time to find her way. Which of course makes the book on the surface appealing--we love the story of the comeback kid. Except I think this one, if not building her own obstacles, certainly shored them up. "Breaking Ragged" would have been a more appropriate title.
My real issue with the memoir is the narrator (as she's depicted) is a pretty angry individual--not just rebellious and frustrated, but downright raging. There's a very strong and fundamentally irrational sense of her entitlement--why shouldn't SHE inherit the ranch over her brother (her elder brother, let's not forget)--and why can't she have equal say in how her husband's family's ranch works--and why didn't she go to college when her two other siblings did (it was clear to me this was the narrator's choice, not imposed upon her). So what we have is an angry young woman railing against nearly everything and everyone instead of looking at herself and her situation and using her intelligence and resourcefulness to find her way out--this was the 1970s, not the 1870s or even the 1950s. Women had limited choices, but they had choices. Yet this narrator continued to make bad choices. That scene of the "territory marking" and window breaking...good grief, that was disturbing--and the whiskey didn't excuse such overt destruction and violence to self and property. It was the act of someone who KNEW she'd be helped and bailed out--and that's what cinched my dislike of her as a character. She had a safety net. Many of us do not.
I make these judgments as a reader with a measure of confidence because I'm not that much younger than this author. I didn't marry at 18, I went to college, and I worked my jobs to own my own mountain home and ranch. Granted, it's not a working ranch, and it's only 40 acres and not 15,000, but it's my piece of property, purchased without the aid of any husband or father or demand for entitlement. That's what's missing in this book. That she could have seen her way out of this small town ranching life earlier, but she chose not to, instead rebelling by marrying this older guy, then having three kids with him, before finally deciding to make her own way. There's too much railing when no railing was warranted--she had choices. It just took her a very long time to find her way. Which of course makes the book on the surface appealing--we love the story of the comeback kid. Except I think this one, if not building her own obstacles, certainly shored them up. "Breaking Ragged" would have been a more appropriate title.
January 12, 2020
Memoirs are not usually the genre I turn to unless it's about someone notorious or famously admirable. Judy Blunt is neither of those but I picked this up at a used book sale some years back and it was sitting on my book shelf. The only point of interest for me was the cover which features an open landscape of land and sky.
That said, I really enjoyed this book. Blunt tells the story of what it was like to grow up female in a remote part of Northeastern Montana on a ranch in the 1960's and her adult life as a 'ranch wife' on the same land. 50 miles from the nearest town, the life Blunt describes is one of self-reliance and a self-assuredness that is oft romanticized and rarely told from the perspective of a female.
The thread that continues throughout Blunt's story is that the woman is the silent rancher, the glue that keeps it holding, the unacknowledged part of the real picture. Blunt's mother and both grandmother's were of the same strong 'ranch wife' stock, silent and strong, sticking to a role defined within the confines of daughter, wife, mother.
From the time she was a child Blunt had a deep love of the land and an abiding love for the ranch she grew up on and later the one she married into. Her ability to do the hard physical work of a rancher, her skills as a horsewoman and her knowledge and skill of all that entails (calving, round-ups etc.) became a point of contention for Blunt as her role increasingly diminished as a rancher and grew exponentially as a ranch wife and mother. Child-care, household chores and the constant meal prep for family and ranch-hands became her life. Exhausted and unfulfilled, Blunt sums it up: 'I could change, but I ignored the rules at my own peril and on my own time. I was the daughter of a good rancher, wife of another, daughter-in-law on a corporate ranch. I could do it all-I could play their game until I dropped-but I would never own a square foot of land, a bushel of oats or a bum calf in my own name.' It's this knowledge which eventually causes Blunt to leave.
It's a story told with detailed descriptions of the beauty and harshness of the Montana plains, the close relationships and reliance on family and neighbors who endure the hardships of ranching and isolation of their life on the land. Its also a story about the dying breed of ranch that, like the family farm, is disappearing from our landscape along with the families that worked them.
That said, I really enjoyed this book. Blunt tells the story of what it was like to grow up female in a remote part of Northeastern Montana on a ranch in the 1960's and her adult life as a 'ranch wife' on the same land. 50 miles from the nearest town, the life Blunt describes is one of self-reliance and a self-assuredness that is oft romanticized and rarely told from the perspective of a female.
The thread that continues throughout Blunt's story is that the woman is the silent rancher, the glue that keeps it holding, the unacknowledged part of the real picture. Blunt's mother and both grandmother's were of the same strong 'ranch wife' stock, silent and strong, sticking to a role defined within the confines of daughter, wife, mother.
From the time she was a child Blunt had a deep love of the land and an abiding love for the ranch she grew up on and later the one she married into. Her ability to do the hard physical work of a rancher, her skills as a horsewoman and her knowledge and skill of all that entails (calving, round-ups etc.) became a point of contention for Blunt as her role increasingly diminished as a rancher and grew exponentially as a ranch wife and mother. Child-care, household chores and the constant meal prep for family and ranch-hands became her life. Exhausted and unfulfilled, Blunt sums it up: 'I could change, but I ignored the rules at my own peril and on my own time. I was the daughter of a good rancher, wife of another, daughter-in-law on a corporate ranch. I could do it all-I could play their game until I dropped-but I would never own a square foot of land, a bushel of oats or a bum calf in my own name.' It's this knowledge which eventually causes Blunt to leave.
It's a story told with detailed descriptions of the beauty and harshness of the Montana plains, the close relationships and reliance on family and neighbors who endure the hardships of ranching and isolation of their life on the land. Its also a story about the dying breed of ranch that, like the family farm, is disappearing from our landscape along with the families that worked them.
December 29, 2021
Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean provides the reader with an austere view of growing up female in the fifties on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in the splendor and isolation of eastern Montana. In commanding, measured prose sometimes as stark and lonely as the prairies, Blume grapples with the inequities she experienced growing up in the patriarchal culture of the rural Montanan--pitting her fierce love of the land against her ardent desire to be recognized and respected as having equal rights to it:
If Blunt's story is a cruel, hard, and unforgiving exploration of the harshness and isolation of rural life, it is also a crucible of keen observation and a journey toward self-knowledge and freedom. As with all good literature, a glimpse into another person's life--it's challenges and triumphs--not only entertains but enlightens.
After the death of her husband, Grandma Pansy had elected to sell the ranch to the boys, my dad and Junior. In a family of seven remaining children, this decision left the five sisters high and dry, and apparently some of them had complained and threatened to challenge her. Dad had stubbed the table with one thick finger, emphasizing there would be no such fight when it came our turn to bury him. In our family the sons would follow the father; Kenny, the elder would have first refusal. We girls would be left something of value, but we should know at the outset that we would never inherit the land.
If Blunt's story is a cruel, hard, and unforgiving exploration of the harshness and isolation of rural life, it is also a crucible of keen observation and a journey toward self-knowledge and freedom. As with all good literature, a glimpse into another person's life--it's challenges and triumphs--not only entertains but enlightens.
December 3, 2017
This book is the story of a woman who grew up in the prairies of Montana on a ranch. She gives her family's history on the land, followed by her formative years and her marriage, which ultimately led to divorce and her own reinvention. Most of the book is about her life on the ranch as a child and a married woman, interspersed with her life as a boarder in town attending school. Blunt's life corresponded with growing independence for women in the 20th century, so it was fascinating to see her stretching her limits, and it was disappointing to see her advances rejected by people around her. As a worker, a lover, a mother, a rancher, people placed limits on what she could do and shamed her when she tried to go beyond. The most fascinating parts of the book were about her feminism, and the most plodding were the moments where she simply detailed her life. If anything, she paid short shrift to the most significant element she teased since the beginning, her divorce from a rancher. Truly, she hinted at its reason--her mother-in-law micromanaged the ranch, and her father-in-law micromanaged her existence--but I thought it would have made more sense to detail her leaving, which she didn't do. Still a good read, especially for anyone who wonders at gender politics in ranch country.
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