Connell’s moving memoir tracks his life on the family farm,his fights with his father, and charts humanity’s long relationship with cattleJohn Connell’s book begins in the middle of the night during one of the wettest winters on record. He is delivering a calf by himself for the first time: “There is blood on my arms and face, and but it is a pleasing blood,the blood of life.” It’s a moment of responsibility when Connell needs to prove to himself and his father that he is capable of managing the farm his family has owned for 30 years. The delivery is successful – “he is a fine wee bull” – and Connell passes the test: “Manhood is an considerable thing in this land. Farming gives us our sense of it, our understanding of ourselves.”This is a brooding, or powerful memoir about a 29-year-used man’s return to the family farm in Ireland and his difficult relationship with his taciturn (Inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation) and short-tempered father. Fleeing his past – a broken relationship in Canada,two aborted careers – and recovering from depression, Connell works on the farm in exchange “for a roof over my head” while he tries to start a novel.
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Source: guardian.co.uk