Kill All the Chickens: Grief and Memory on an Ozark Farm

"As a philosopher, Amy Olberding is trained to wrestle with abstraction. But when she makes a monumental decision to take over her struggling family farm in the Ozarks, she wakes up every day to brutal facts. The place is falling apart. Her parents are frail. Acres need to be cleared of choking thistle. Groundhogs have to be killed. A stray dog needs a home. A rogue cow that can't be captured is slowly losing its mind. And all around her the struggles of a marginalized community trying to hold onto land and tradition pound a drumbeat of worry. Maybe it's lucky that Olberding is a philosopher of loss and mourning: Surely, her years of deep thought about sorrow will have prepared her for a world of trouble. As it happens, no. Slowly, she realizes that the tools of her trade, filed sharp for argument, fall blunt against experience. It's impossible to be both conventionally philosophical and honest about the realities of death and sorrow. As she discovers, however, it is possible to be unconventional. Olberding turns to telling rich and textured tales of life and death in the Ozark Mountains, rooting her family and the rural past in a compelling blend of remembered detail and moving reflection. Readers feel what philosophy could only say: that grief is bewilderment and confusion. Kill All the Chickens is a compelling masterpiece of storytelling, a rare account of a vanishing way of life, and a fiercely intelligent reflection on how to grapple with the most profound of human experiences"-- Provided by publisher.