THE ISLAND WITHIN
Richard Nelson
San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989
280 pp., $18.95
COUNTRY CURED
Reflections from the Heart
Jerry Bledsoe
Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1989
196 pp., $14.95
“I have traveled a good deal in Concord," Thoreau wrote, and his example demonstrated that the wonders available to an observant patience might be anywhere. In the past twenty years or so, along with a growing public awareness of nature's apparent withdrawal from us, there has been a spate of nonfiction books about nature. Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Jim Harrison, Maxine Kumin, Barry Lopez, Noel Perrin, and William Warner are only a few of the more noticeable writers who have portrayed a place and the evolution of their relationship to it. Now, from nearly opposite ends of the country, come two new books in this genre. In scope, ambition, and achievement, they seem at first quire different, but there are surprising similarities between them.
Jerry Bledsoe is a journalist for the Greensboro (North Carolina) News and Record and the author of several books, most of which give the appearance of having been assembled from newspaper stories and columns. They have titles like Just Folks: Vistitin' with Carolina People and Carolina Curiosities: Jerry Bledsoe's Outlandish Guide to the Dadblamest Things to See and Do in North Carolina. In 1988, however, he published Bitter Blood, a gripping and highly professional account of the Sharp and Newsome murders in Kentucky and North Carolina; it served time on the New York Times best-seller list.
This background creates a mixture of expectations in the presence of Country Cured: Reflections from the Heart. These reflections arise form Bledsoe's having decided, some years ago, that country life was what he wanted. He recalls episodes from his childhood and youth in a small town, introduces some of his relatives, and comes down to the present, telling us about his daily life as the seasons change, the animal life with which he tries to become better acquainted, and the lure of the distant beach. The final chapter, "Fellow Travelers," reaches out beyond Bledsoe's chosen territory to make the point that "we are all part of a larger world."
In the chapter called "Escaping Seaward," Bledsoe confronts the chief fact of the life about which he has been writing:
“The stereotype of country dwellers suggests that we don't travel much, that we are homebodies, content to live out our lives on a small stage. This image is, to some extent, accurate, but today's country residents often find themselves sharing with their urban peers the need to stay on the move to earn a living. It's practically impossible to find more than a handful of people able to sustain themselves and their families on a small farm the life that was the norm in rural America less than a century ago. Now, we country folk are more likely to spend hours on the highway each week in our efforts to earn the money that allows us to sustain our way of life. In that sense, rural life is as luxury item,
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