response 4: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Ray's topic runs deep with me, because I am also a child of pine barrens. The New Jersey Pine Barrens are similar to the Georgia longleaf forests in many respects: they both harbor carnivorous plants like pitcher plants and sundews, they have endangered tree frogs, and they require regular forest fires to regenerate and keep out other trees that would otherwise choke out the pines.This is a photo from a May 2007 Jersey Pines fire. The photograph was taken from, by my calculations, about twenty miles away.

The Jersey Pines are different from the Georgia longleaf forests in one, vital respect: the land is worthless for agriculture. Acidic, sandy, full of bog iron ore, the few settlements that once existed there were eventually abandoned. Our Pine Barrens today are full of ghost towns.

I will have to admit that Ray's style of writing, while it makes sense (in my opinion) for an essay or two, confused me in terms of compiling a novel. Each chapter was not so much a chapter as an essay. Chapters are meant to build on each other whereas essays stand alone. These chapters stood alone. Of course there is some cross over - her father's mental illness is mentioned in more than one chapter, or she brings up the fact that she had to wear a dress her whole life in several places - but for the most part these chapters are distinct and autonomous. It is difficult to discern a climax or feel any rising action. All of this made the book, for me, difficult to read. I also wonder at her decision to alternate between a chapter about nature and then a memoir-chapter. I was looking for connections and transitions throughout, with difficulty. When I read the chapter on the Altamaha raft trip I thought, perhaps, the two worlds will start to merge... but they didn't. I'm not sure why that is what I want, as a writer. It certainly doesn't reflect Ray's experience. I have to question, though, whether or not this was the best format in which to write her work and make her point.

I feel like a hypocrite saying this, because I devoured Abbey's book. But I think there's something to be said for voice, for the fact that in Abbey's book the reader knew, from the beginning, that the story would follow a season. It gave some structure to the ensuing chapters. I found Down the River to be a climactic chapter. Some of the chapters, too, had their own climax: Climbing back up the cliff because he had no other choice (and succeeding!) in Havasu, finding the dead man's body, discovering the gopher snake. More often than not, you had the feeling that Abbey was building toward something. Ray allows you to just meander along. It's a book I would pick up and read when I needed a distraction, maybe a book I would keep in the bathroom. It's not a book that will keep me excited and engaged the whole way through.

If I wrote about my childhood in regards to nature, I would fortunately be able to easily weave the facts into the meat of the narrative. My father was always coming home with snakes and turtles for my brother and I to inspect. There was, incidentally, a dump in the Pine Barrens a bit behind our house, and some of my earliest memories are of Dad taking Adam and me out there on hot summer days to catch lizards. We've never been without a pet of some sort - cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, you name it. Dad was also a hunter. I came home to a skinless deer hanging from a tree in the backyard more than once. He's also the most conscientious and respectful sportsman I know. He likewise took us out fishing on the boat and the beech, woke us up early to tramp through meadows, skirting woodland, letting the dog work to flush birds. As a family, we camped every fourth of July on a bit of farmland his grandfather used to own that abutts the Delaware River. Ever since I was potty-trained, I've been able to pee in the woods. I could go on and on, but what I think I've discovered is, if I do any writing about the environment I grew up in, the narrative will be about the land as much as it will be about my father.