Good Land: Or, My Life as a Farm Boy

The author of this bittersweet memoir paints a harrowing yet sometimes humorous picture of growing up on a mechanized, 4000-acre farm in Goodland, Kan. Because his father considered sons cheap labor, Bair and his brother spent their teenage years circling the fields on tractors, castrating new-born lambs, mending fences and envying town kids who had lives outside of farm work. There were rare moments of joy--his grandmother's garden, the song of a meadowlark--but most of the time Bair longed for escape from the drudgery, humiliation and periodic beatings inflicted by his insensitive father. After college, he drifted aimlessly, tried drugs, failed at numerous jobs and in desperation went back to work on the farm. Eventually he faced the fact that he could not go on being a slave to his father and left to make a career in journalism. Nevertheless, he always returns when the old man needs help, resentful yet proud of his less-than-perfect farming skills. He claims his relationship with his father has mellowed, but ambivalence permeates this brutally candid account of a childhood that had none of the charm often associated with rural life. (Mar.)