Flat Rock Journal: A Day in the Ozark Mountains

Ken Carey's book packs half a lifetime of good living--years of raising children and learning the ways of the Arkansas backwoods--into a mere 160 pages. There, on his 80-acre patch of ground, Carey studies the ways of the mountain people, campaigns against the forestry industry's clear-cutting practices, raises vegetables, and comes to grips with the realities of the place--such as venomous snakes outnumbering people by a wide margin up in the mountains. This fact prompts Carey to examine his leanings toward Buddhism: the kill-nothing philosophy is sublime. But in the Ozarks anyone exhibiting so pacific a temperament during summer months would soon be compost. Carey seems to have found a real home in this neglected corner of America, and he's given us a terrific book.