Kim Barnes

Kim Barnes' FINDING CARUSO (2003) was a serendipitous find at a Goodwill store. A first edition like-new hardback, cover price $23.95, with an Ollie's sticker on back for $1.99, and another minor sticker on the front for 99¢. Oh, the humiliations and injustices of the writing life and the publishing world.

Because this is a damn good book. Set in 1958-59 Snake Junction, Idaho, where the Snake meets the Clearwater, it chronicles the coming-of-age of Buddy Hope, just 17 when he meets the show more mysterious, much older temptress, Irene. Buddy and his brother, Lee (24), are "immigrants" from Oklahoma, after both their parents were killed in a car crash. Their father had been a poor sharecropper and an abusive drunk, so there's a pertinent backstory for them. Lee is a charismatic, chick magnet, country singer who forms a band and brings new prosperity to The Stables, the roadhouse where they settle in. A woman in the band disappears. An Indian named Wolfchild is arrested. Forest fires are all around in Idaho that summer, drawing ever closer. Buddy feels Irene slipping away from him (as her backstory behind to emerge), and becomes desperate to keep her. He clashes with Lee. Indeed, everything begins to heat up as the story progresses. There is sex, violence, murder, horses, goat roping (yeah, really) and more in this compelling tale of the mid-century modern West. It is a book with a great story and great characters that I found hard to put down. And yet, its pristine condition and multiple markdowns. What the hell! Well, I'm glad I found it. Bravo, Ms Barnes, even if I am twenty-some years late. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

This is a magical, heartbreaking, and elemental book which nonetheless makes the reader want to smack at least two of the main characters upside the head and tell them to stop being such immature, self-centered, entitled babies.

It's also a story of obsession and loss and the lengths we will travel to fill the aching emptiness within.

Thomas Deracotte and his pampered, pregnant wife are perhaps the worst possible candidates to rehabilitate a deserted farm in the wilderness of north central show more Idaho in 1960. Totally unprepared by both personality and life experience, their ambitious but poorly planned adventure is doomed to failure. Self-indulgent and willful Helen spends her days napping and reading, lolling half-dressed around the tent meant only as a temporary shelter, while Thomas ignores the crumbling buildings and weed-choked fields of his fantasy farm to indulge in his real passion, fly-fishing in the river that runs through the property. Neither is making any effort (or, therefore, progress) toward their stated goal of rehabilitating the farm or to have Thomas open a small medical practice in the closest village.

Local hired men and a homeless boy are enlisted to save the hapless couple from their own navel-gazing paralysis, and by the time Helen's pregnancy comes to a terrifying and bloody end, young Manny has taken on the curious role of hired hand, foster son, master farmer, nursemaid, and odd-man-out in an increasingly fragile and unhealthy relationship between Helen and Thomas. The relationship becomes even more fraught when Helen drowns under suspicious circumstances, and her daughter Elise is left to grow up in almost primitive isolation with her father and Manny, her ties to reality growing ever more tenuous.

Filled with flawed by realistic characters and set against the magnificent isolation of the forest around them, the novel teeters between tragedy and hope as it tests the boundaries of what love makes possible. show less

Within the first two chapters of Finding Caruso I found myself calling Kim Barnes a favorite author. Despite the fact that the first chapter started off raw and violent; as shocking as a bucket of ice cold language, I loved the way she described the landscape, the emotion, the family structure. A mother timid and protective, a father despairing and drunken, brothers bound by love and loyalty. After a tragedy the brothers make their way to Idaho. Music is what keeps them going, but brotherly show more blood is what saves them.
It's also the bittersweet tale of sibling rivalry. One brother being the older, better looking, the more talented, the one used to getting everything while the other looks on, burning with jealousy, brimming with pride. But, what happens when the tides turn and baby brother gets a stroke of luck, wins out? show less

In the Wilderness is Kim Barnes's ode to her childhood. Within its pages she gives reason to what made her experiences growing up so different from yours or mine. Deep in the logging camps of Idaho Barnes is confronted with parents who sign on to a religion movement with such fervor that it feels like an overnight shift in ideals. Indeed, Barnes can remember her mother's pierced ears - here today, gone tomorrow.
Kim Barnes writes with the fluidity of water. Her words flow and paint a seamless show more picture. In In the Wilderness Barnes was able to portray her family and home life without compromise. She didn't shy away from revealing short-comings and failures. She didn't try to gloss over the hardness of her upbringing or surroundings. At the same time, despite the difficulties, the love and respect she has for her childhood is abundantly clear. Another aspect of the memoir that struck a chord was the naked truth about sex and the realities of coming of age. Barnes addresses her first preteen crush as openly as discussing what she wore to school. It is stark and unflinching. In some places I am reminded of Ariel Moore (do you remember her? She was a Reverend's daughter from the movie 'Footloose' in 1984). show less