A Farm Under a Lake

by Martha Bergland

Home health care nurse Janet Hawn agrees to drive her latest client, a silent Alzheimer's patient named May, from Green Bay, Wisconsin to her daughter's house in northern Illinois. Janet and her husband Jack, an out-of-work salesman, grew up on neighboring farms in Illinois, and on the long drive through familiar territory, Janet reflects back on her childhood and courtship and tries to figure out where her life took a wrong turn.

Genres: Fiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1989

About the author

After her retirement from teaching English at Milwaukee Area Technical College, Martha Bergland took a break to write an article on Lapham for Milwaukee Magazine. This break became five years of studying Increase Lapham. She has written two novels, A Farm Under a Lake and Idle Curiosity, both published by Graywolf, and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Glendale, Wisconsin.

(from http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/...)

Reviews

[jimtown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another obscure book I'd found at the library a week or two ago. I started reading it and wasn't sure if I would get into it or not. It's hard to change gears sometimes in reading books one right after another. I find it especially hard if I relate and enjoy the characters to just up and start over with a new book. Maybe that's why series books are popular. Anyway, this book is unusual and I'm finding it to my liking so far. More later...

I hit a section in this story where Janet is remembering coming back to her childhood home at a farm in Illinois after being away at college in Minnesota. This section, as she travels through Wisconsin and back to places she remembers, seeing them over after being away for the first time, is so full of rich description of things and the area and thoughts and feelings that I'm loving this book. I had a hard time putting it down last night but I was getting tired and needed to save more of it for tonight. Great stuff after an unusual start.

This is a very placid book, mild but enjoyable with some good insight. It shows caring for the elderly in a very positive light. The mood and time were ones I could easily relate to. If there were any part that was a little disconcerting, it was that Janet starts out remembering with the elderly woman she is driving with, May, but 3/4 of the way in, her memories switch to being told at another time. Still, not a bad book. The things I liked the best were the descriptions of caring for elderly people, the hard to describe rift in Janet's marriage, which she realized would be there from the start, the hope Jack and Janet had of finding their place in life, and the very deft way the places and houses were described, and of course the elusive Carl. Janet seemed as real to me as if she were the author herself. Makes me wonder how much of this story might be autobiographical.

[Kat Quion · Rating 2 out of 5]

i just couldnt understand the main character. She had many whims and that’s fine, i couldnt understand why she loved Jack…

[Jgknobler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A forty year old nurses aide, married to an unemployed and depressed man she has known all her life, travels back to the rural town in Ohio where she was raised, and where 20 years earlier she had a brief and passionate interlude with her now husband's younger brother. The best parts are the descriptions of farm life in the 1960's, in particular a rather detailed description of canning crabapples. There is a sense of loss throughout this novel, both for particular relationships and for a way of life that in 1989, when this novel was written, was already disappearing.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting. I thought it started out slow, but then I really got pulled into the main character's story. As Janet is driving the older woman she cares for from Wisconsin to her daughter's house in Illinois, Janet begins contemplating her own life. Through remembering her story and how she ended up with her husband, she rediscovers herself and what she needs to do to be happy.

[rndgmoat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proving once again that the Vintage Contemporaries paperback line cannot let you down, this is a really great little novel full of beautiful prose. A deeply regional work about growing up, getting older, and second-guessing where you might have ended up at 40. It's sad and moving and profound. What an underrated gem.

[Ed Sarna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quietly seductive first novel with subtly drawn characters and a satisfying story.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Bergland's evocation of farm life in the 70's and 80's is spot-on, rendered lovingly and poetically down to the smallest detail. (For instance, I'd never thought anyone else noticed the way the entry to a farmhouse smells, of rubber boots and greasy coveralls and dog food and onions, but Bergland has, and she describes it in several lyrical passages throughout the book that made me very nostalgic for the smell.) But don't think that Bergland is the sort of sentimental writer who sees the past through rose-colored glasses. She recognizes that farm life is hard and often lonely, and she narrates those troubling episodes unflinchingly. The book that I was most reminded of was Red Earth White Earth by Will Weaver. Both are books of their time (the mid-80's farm crisis), but both stand up well today because of the quality of the writing.

[Sonia Reppe · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Chapter 3: "The last time I drove along the Rock River I was twenty-two years old and I had just graduated from college up in Minnesota. I drove all night with all my clothes and books and records in the back seat and trunk of my Mustang from Duluth down to Half Moon, not because I was in such a big hurry to see the farm or my mother or father, but because I had the romantic notion that it would be wonderful to be driving along the Rock River when the sun came up. It was wonderful. The dew was so heavy that every leaf and blade and spider web was encased in silver or gold, the grasses and weeds were lush, and the Rock was wide and placid and thick and brown, bounded in mud, closer to the element of earth than of sky. I drove slowly along route 2 with the windows down feeling the thick air pass over my face, wanting to remember every dazzling plant and slant of light."

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

When looking back on our lives we may wonder how different things would have been had we chosen a different path. Can we escape the memory of 'what would have been' and chart out a path where all that matters is happiness? Without knowing it, Janet finds herself at that fork in the road; along her journey she meets others who are stuck watching the passing traffic and those that have ventured out into the unknown. The book is wonderful and reaches down into your soul with inspiration.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's alomost impossible to put this book down, so you'll want to have at least a few hours before you get started. Bergland slowly draws you into her setting and characters, until you are one of them, feeling their emotions, lured into their world. The story itself is wonderful, but her telling of it is incredible, delightful and poetic.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of slow, carefully written fiction that you'll either like or hate. The first chapter could have been a short story on it's own. Graceful writing and keen descriptions tell this tale about a farm girl returning to her roots.

[Suzette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up along the Great River Road, and although I was not part of a farming family, this book captures the essence of the best aspects of this part of the country. I first read it in 1990 and it still reads great.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I read this book several years ago, it is one of my favorites and I continue to lend it out and look forward to it's return.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many thoughts and not enough action and forward motion for me to rate this any higher.

[Rachel]

Pretty good