The Long Fields

FINALIST, Autobiography & Memoir, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year (2023)Anne-Marie Oomen's sixth essay collection, The Long Fields, celebrates rural life as she experienced it growing up on a farm and then into an adulthood marked by both wandering and homing. The three parts cover three phases of the author's life: moments of early farm life in "Childhood's Lamplight," building her own home (complete with Estwing hammer) in "The Heart of Place," and finally "Kuieren" (Dutch for "amble"), which delves into the wide swath of daily life. These three parts build a world that offers the vitality of living country. At its heart, The Long Fields voices the best of Midwestern rural living: a relationship to land, stewarding a place, and honoring the sacred quotidian.