Leaving the Land

by Douglas Unger

Book Overview

The reputation of Leaving the Land has grown steadily since its first publication in 1984. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Robert F. Kennedy Award and was an ALA Notable book in 1984.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080329560X
• ISBN13: 9780803295605
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A sad but convincing portrait

"Leaving the Land" by Douglas Unger is a sad book. It doesn't make you laugh much and it has few moments of inspiration. But it is nonetheless an entrancing and all-too-real portrait of the untidy death of a way of life in America. The book focuses on a farming community in South Dakota that is falling victim to changing economics and technological progress in the mid-20th century. As the farmers are forced to sell out and move on, the small town they revolve around begins to die, too. The story focuses on the farmer's daughter, Marge, who, as a young woman, has dreams of something better than herding turkeys all day long, but mistakenly links her happiness to finding a man. This proves to be a big mistake, of course, and she ends up hanging on in the small dying town. Midway through "Leaving the Land," the narrator changes to Marge's son, who recounts the town's demise and his mother's and his travails. Anyone who has enjoyed Kent Haruf's celebrated "Plainsong" will find "Leaving the Land" a worthy read. "Plainsong" is a tad better, primarily because of its comic sensibilities, but they are companion novels in the way they profile a dying way of life in the Great Plains. Like Haruf, Unger is an authoritative voice. It's clear that he personally has experienced many of the things that happen in the book, from working on a farm to experiencing the death of a community.