American Harvest, in which Mockett has intelligent things to say about race, faith and food, is a nimble blend of personal reflection and incisive social history. Consistently thought-provoking, it also features lots of keen-eyed nature writing ... If a less-talented writer tackled such a project, the results might be condescending. But Mockett’s sincerity and curiosity—and her long-standing connection to the region—make for an insightful book ... Mockett is deeply attuned to the land. Her description...is vivid. She asks smart questions about genetically modified foods and organic farming. And when she looks to the horizon, her prose dazzles.
Mockett’s heartfelt and often-emotional memories of following the wheat harvest for a summer, through seven states, is unlike anything you’ve read. In just 380 pages, she raises almost every existential question about race, identity and religion ... The author’s exquisite, intimate writing helps readers see the muted and vivid colors of the land, from red dust in Texas to lush green in Idaho, and understand her conflicting emotions when she is taken for Indian or Mexican ... Whether you’re interested ins big-scale farming, fine writing, monster equipment, or the history of just about everything connected to farming and farmers, please read American Harvest.
... a rich blend of science, philosophy and spirituality ... We pass dying towns, pioneer cemeteries and nuclear missile fields, and we learn to see wild pigs as pests, like city subway rats, running through fields and damaging the wheat. We contemplate the parched bones of long-discarded farm equipment as we ride in computer-driven tractors working satellite-monitored fields. Mockett writes poetically about the shifting colors of the sky and how they morph from dawn to noon to midnight. She marvels at the strength, patience and joy the harvesters take in their work.
Every page of this (slightly too long) book is suffused with the struggle to comprehend, without condescending ... She only partly succeeds ... This is a travel book, and like all the best travel books, it is about an interior journey that just happens to take place in particularly evocative scenery ... This story, in other hands, might well have bored me by the end of the prologue. But this author has the kind of deft touch with the English language that would make me read a book by her, no matter what it was about. She also has a sense of humour ... The Midwest has changed her. That, perhaps, is her greatest talent: the willingness to examine, even abandon, her own biases before she casts stones. That’s a lesson in empathy that we can all learn from, in the time of coronavirus, in the time of presidential elections—and beyond.
In addition to providing...historical context of white settlership and agriculture, Mockett also documents illuminating conversations she has with her harvesting team. These conversations prove meaningful, particularly because Mockett maps her thinking so well ... The impulse to bridge political, geographic, and cultural divisions may remind readers of writing that proliferated after the 2016 election, as journalists raced to explain 'the other half' ... While it is tempting to cast American Harvest as yet another book about the 'white working class,' it resists such categorization. Undoubtedly, Mockett was privy to much of the criticism waged against this genre and took active measures to avoid these trappings. Moreover, her unique food-focused question and efforts to historically contextualize her observations help keep American Harvest a safe distance from that quagmire of a discourse. But what ultimately sets American Harvest apart is the fact that Mockett scrutinizes both sides of the divide, not just the 'other half.' Her question implicates a contradictory attitude on the part of both city dwellers and country folk; Christians and atheists ... Her forthrightness engenders trust among the harvesters and her readers as well ... Though she did not feel comfortable sharing her fullest self with the harvesters, she does so with the reader, while putting on a masterclass of reporting with humility.
As a ground-level investigation of our fractured politics, American Harvest disappoints. Ms. Mockett seems to possess neither the skill nor the interest in conducting probing interviews ... But as a glimpse into a mixed-race woman’s search for identity in a homeland where she is made to feel alien, American Harvest is affecting ... While she frequently challenges their epistemology, Ms. Mockett never questions the sincerity of her companions’ religious beliefs ... American Harvest is yet another reminder that our nation is more polarized than at any point since the Civil War.
... by turns a woman’s travelogue of the Great Plains, a sweeping history of the American West, and a cross-sectional study of contemporary Christian theology ... Mockett...spent childhood summers with her father’s family in Nebraska for the harvest. Her mother’s family is Japanese; a cousin runs a Zen Buddhist temple in Iwaki. Her insight into both cultures (and, perhaps, the Du Boisian “second sight” of the outsider) enlivens her questions about identity, community, and religion, and adds depth to her approach ... Mockett’s memoir mostly takes the city vs. country narrative as a given, but also reveals the unnoticed qualities the two places share ... Mockett is a genuinely curious, meticulous narrator, open to experience and confident enough to acknowledge her own biases ... Mockett doesn’t resolve the conflicting ideas and discomfiting contradictions she observes on her travels. Chief among them is the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the ugliness of its history.
Readers will enjoy a narrative rich in historical context of colonization, land ownership, and farming that is expertly woven into chapters with searching theological dialog while describing picturesque landscapes of fields and skies ... A highly readable, multifaceted look into the topics of faith and living in America today. The level of intimacy within these pages invests readers not only in the unfolding human story but also in the history of the land.
... a somewhat confusing blend of faith discussion, memoir, history, and repetitive culture clashes. Mockett clearly has a great deal of love for her family land and engages earnestly and respectfully with everyone she meets. The result is a placid narrative on farm country, with a biblical twist.
Mockett’s portrait is nuanced, revealing those overlooked people in counties likely to have voted for the sitting president to be worth paying attention to ... A revealing, richly textured portrait of the lives of those who put food on our tables.
