This was a beautifully written book on certain subcategory of Americans living off grid in southern Colorado, with the author sort of falling in love with the lifestyle and joining them.
I often enjoy books where people make a big change to their lives and start over in a new place. There was a lot of people making dramatic life changes in this book. For most of them, however, they are doing it because they have few other choices, or as a last desperate measure. One exception is the author, who continues to live in New York while dabbling in this lifestyle, with the option to leave any time he needed to.
The book moves at a pretty slow pace, covering the history of the area, meeting many of the inhabitants, and exploring why they (and countless other Americans) would live so far away from civilization. Thanks to his writing and the beautiful photos included the author shows why people would be attracted, but it is clear that life there isn’t for most people.
Since there are not really many police or any kind of governmental presence in the area people have more freedom to do what they like (legal or otherwise). Also there are wider cracks to fall through without a safety net.
While hearing about the hardships of living here I sometimes wondered what the mission of the author was in this book. Sometimes he follows stories or gives out information that while curious or interesting didn’t seem to lead his tale anywhere. At the end of the book I knew a lot more about the area but I’m not sure I felt like I got a deeper meaning out of the book.
I’m glad I read the book just for the writing – especially describing the natural beauty of the area and the people that live there. He made great efforts to depict the residents fairly and without prejudice, rather than focusing on the more scandalous parts of their lifestyle. There was a delicate balance of happy and sad stories, but the balance worked.
It is hard to say without ever having seen the area, but just from reading this book I don’t think off-grid living is for me. Maybe when I was younger, or maybe with a seriously powerful generator and a well-stocked wine cellar. But it was certainly interesting to read about.
Next I am reading Slow Horses by Mick Herron.
