Told in a series of powerful interconnected essays, Blunt lays bare the experiences of growing up on Montana wheat and cattle ranches. Born into the third generation of homesteaders, Blunt observes how ranching and agriculture is a completely male dominated world, an environment in which women are often utterly overworked and underappreciated: “[B]eing female, I […] learned to bake bread and can vegetables and reserve my opinion when the men were talking.” And if a woman, such as Blunt, does not fit expected gender roles, she holds “no place of value on my family’s ranch,” leaving her with two choices: “I could marry or I could leave.” She chooses the former option, marrying at eighteen to a man twelve years her senior. Highly self-sufficient, Blunt can ride, rope, and wrangle cattle and much more; her writing greatly details all aspects of ranch life, from birthing animals, enduring blizzards, and living in extreme isolation. But in time, despite her love for the land, Blunt’s strong personality finally clashes with the ever-stagnant position of ranch wife. So she decides to “break clean:” finding the strength to divorce and move with her children to establish a new life for herself. Having a lifelong penchant for writing—an attribute not at all appreciated by ranch menfolk—Blunt attends college classes while balancing jobs, eventually becoming a Director of Creative Writing at the University of Montana. Just like her name, Breaking Clean is blunt, and yet subtle, the writing clean and detailed. Blunt’s unique voice of stubbornness and diligence shine through, all while examining family dynamics versus individuality, land ownership, generational struggles, etc. With its feminist perspective, this memoir quickly dismantles any romance associated with the American West and cowboy culture; a rather sobering, humbling takeaway. For anyone interested in the American West, Breaking Clean is a soul baring read.
Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt, Knopf, 2002, 303 pages
~LMC