Prairie Silence

My book club read Prairie Silence this month.  We invited the author, Melanie Hoffert, to attend our meeting.  My first impression was favorable. We wore the same sandals (hers-red, mine-black).  Her book, a memoir, was a good read although she is pretty young to be writing a memoir.  One person can write one, maybe two memoirs in a lifetime.  Her story is about silence. Growing up in a small town in North Dakota, she heard a lot of silence.  Farming is like that.  You work, you eat, you work, you sleep and you work some more.  Farmers do not have the time nor the energy to talk about feelings.  Feelings are stifled because nature will eventually take care of things like the crops and your life.  It has taken Melanie a long time to be comfortable in her own skin.  She kept silent about many things.  Given the recent decision by the North Dakota legislature to reject a measure that would have made sexual orientation discrimination illegal, we can see why she kept silent.  She admitted she was nervous coming to our book club.  At first taken aback, I thought about it.  Here she is, an openly gay author, coming to a home in Ham Lake (deep in the heart of Michelle Bachman territory) with about 30 older people in the room.  Yes, that would be intimidating. Several people shared stories about their children being gay and eventually the room relaxed.  She could relax because we weren't silent.  We shared our feelings.  In her book she shares her doubts about her faith and her religion.  I really enjoyed our book club meeting this month.  Meeting the author was really an inspiring evening.  She was very gracious and the discussion went really well.