Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind, by Grace Olmstead: Penguin Random House, 2021, $14.89, 256 pp.
Grace Olmstead grew up in Emmett, Idaho, graduated from Patrick Henry College, and is now a journalist living outside of Washington, DC, with her husband and three children, writing about agriculture, family, and localism. Olmstead writes prolifically on her popular Substack, Granola, and has written for a number of magazines and newspapers, including The American Conservative, The Week, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and Christianity Today.
Her first, and only book so far, Uprooted, is foremost a memoir about homesickness; not the kind of homesickness that can be described as “a gentle ache for material things…things we often associate with nostalgia.” Rather, it’s a much deeper and personal exploration of that “ache for presences past, for the souls that animated and embodied our most beloved memories of homes…[that ache which] is often filled with grief and gratitude because our entire idea of home is bound up in their presence, in the way they lived and loved so well.”
Her book takes on a Wendell Berry tone as well as a cue from Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, as she wrestles with those realities that we who move from home as we come of age always have to face. Those realities include that fact that life goes on without us when we leave a place; and, that place we knew as home is now unattainable, although painfully desirable, mostly because it was the people who made our most beloved memories what they are.
Much of the book follows Olmstead’s recollection of her family’s history of settling in Emmett and farming the land, generationally. As she contemplates her heritage and takes personal inventory of the merits and value of her roots in that place, there is an element of her story that is particular and provincial.
Nevertheless, in good literary fashion, she uses the particulars of her story to move her readers to consider the universal principles that affect human flourishing. I’ll mention just three that spoke to me, personally:
- Colonization. In this context, it’s the economic colonization of rural America. This is the modern approach to capital success whereby large corporations exploit rural people and cultures for their resources—“lumber, paper, coal, minerals, gemstones, oil, gas, produce, dairy, meat, and grains.” And, while corporations and consumers exploit America’s rural communities for their resources, they simultaneously undervalue, and in some cases even outright dismiss, the values of the same. These communities are usually rich in virtues that make us flourish as human beings. Most of our rural communities have healthy generational bonds that derive from “shared beliefs, values, goals, and practices,” which in turn emphasize “stewardship, neighborliness, voluntarism, and responsibility.”
- Place. Using Richard Florida’s classifications of “the mobile,” “the stuck,” and “the rooted,” Olmstead explores the modern classification of people as it pertains to space and place as well as some of the motivations that lead people to stay in one place (i.e., their hometown) or move to another (i.e., the iconic cities). These motivations could stand to be proved as some indeed will be found wanting.
- Independence vs. the collective. “The same tenacity and independence” that often makes a man successful in difficult times and in challenging industries like farming, is also the same independence that can displace the next generation from its roots and heritage. Speaking of her Grandpa Dad, Olmstead tragically notes, “While he was eager to share many of the treasures he stored up over time—stories, histories, and poems, in particular—the farm always remained something he kept to himself.” One’s way of life must be passed on to the next generation by sharing it and involving the collective (i.e., family and/or community).
I recommend the book as a millennial’s astute and personal exploration of a perennial human conundrum: to what people and to what place do we belong? And, what are the implications of our personal views on place and space? Are they merely pragmatic or is there a moral dimension to the answer?