A review by jdscott50
Miracle Country: A Memoir by Kendra Atleework
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
5.0
The desert always provides its own set of mysteries and miracles. A barren landscape blooms purple in the summer. Rocks race each other where it seems that no life could even thrive. In the high desert, a pine can only drop seeds when a pinecone reaches a specific temperature. It is in this land where the author and her family live and grow. Kendra Atleework's life is inextricable from this place, and she tells these stories together just as a wildfire threatens her town.
Owens Valley is a forgotten place. Likely referred to as a place for the newlywed and nearly dead, it had the potential to be a thriving community at the turn of the 20th century. Until Mulholland and his dream of water for Los Agenelses nearly killed the community. Atleework jumps back and forth, telling us the history of water in the west and California. She also tells her own story of being raised in Owens Valley. The wonder and miracle in growing up in the community, but then as a teen, claustrophobic and yearning for escape. Adding to this, her mother would fight cancer for seven years until Kendra turned sixteen.
Her life and land are intertwined, and even as she yearns to escape it, she soon wishes to return after college. It is a way home has a grip on you. You have no choice but to return and defend it. A heartfelt story that should be added to the history of water in the west. We see the community and personal impacts by the demands of the powerful.
Owens Valley is a forgotten place. Likely referred to as a place for the newlywed and nearly dead, it had the potential to be a thriving community at the turn of the 20th century. Until Mulholland and his dream of water for Los Agenelses nearly killed the community. Atleework jumps back and forth, telling us the history of water in the west and California. She also tells her own story of being raised in Owens Valley. The wonder and miracle in growing up in the community, but then as a teen, claustrophobic and yearning for escape. Adding to this, her mother would fight cancer for seven years until Kendra turned sixteen.
Her life and land are intertwined, and even as she yearns to escape it, she soon wishes to return after college. It is a way home has a grip on you. You have no choice but to return and defend it. A heartfelt story that should be added to the history of water in the west. We see the community and personal impacts by the demands of the powerful.