In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

Book review by Joel
I found this book at the bookstore on the campus of Washington State University, while hunting for world famous Cougar Gold cheese. It was a local book, since Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho are so close.

This is the coming of age story of Kim Barnes, a true tale of her growing up in the woods of Idaho where her father worked as a logger. These were tight nit communities where everyone knew what everyone was doing, and because logging was so dangerous, they often had to come together to mourn the loss of one of their own.

Her father grows more into Pentecostalism, and the families around the group get even more interwoven. As she grows older and reaches puberty she starts to rebel. She eventually falls in with a bad crowd and does drugs and smokes cigarettes and listens to rock and roll. Something, however, keeps her from completely going off the edge and she becomes born again and enlists other teens to join in a group of self-professed Jesus freaks. She falls away from that group and then at 18 moves out of home and away from her family.

This story is very good. I summed it up poorly, just for brevity. Kim Barnes is a poet, and her writing is great. It was one of those stories that grab you and pull you into an environment that you wince at while you can’t look away. Really fascinating.

Recommend.

Joel.