Barnes, Kim. A country called home, New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2008.When recently graduated doctor Thomas Deracotte takes his young wife Helen to the countryside of Idaho, the couple embark on dreams of a rural idyll, leaving civilisation behind to establish a 'back-to-the-land' existence (fitting with the decade of the novel's setting, the 1960's). However, utopias are not so simple, and human weaknesses intrude to complicate matters between the couple, whose relationship strain is exarcebated by a growing bond between Helen and the young drifter-cum-farmhand Deracotte has hired to do the heavy-lifting on the farm, Manny. Meanwhile, the arrival of a newly-born daughter, Elise, and Thomas' descent from a physician to something of a 'wild-man' outcast, further complicates matters and tips the balance away from harmony. Pullitzer prize-holder Barne's narrative is dark and brooding, and deeply rooted in the natural setting in which it takes place.
