Circling Back Home

Book excerpt: Circling Back Home is the story of one woman, at a time when values of home, family, and care of the land seem increasingly absent, looking to her past to create a life of significance for her family. Her search takes her back to the prairie of her grandmothers, who survived personal hardships and lived off what the land provided. Lipp-Acord mourns the loss of one child and celebrates the birth of others, all while balancing her own desire to put down roots with her husband's life as an itinerant ranch hand. Written over ten years, these essays compose a picture of endurance and grace as the author addresses her history and finds her way home. "[Darcy] Lipp-Acord is one woman, but she tells a dozen stories, her ancestors' voices mingling with her own: the farmer's daughter, the Catholic woman, the wife, the mother, the artist. . . . Circling Back Home reflects the life of a ranch woman in all its prismatic variety."—Linda M. Hasselstrom