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True To Herself: One Vermont Writer’s Lifetime Of Making Good Things From Bad

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Tuesday December 18, 2012

By Larry Johnson

   In “True to Herself,” Alison Kirk chronicles her own life inside and outside Vermont over a period of decades. Her experiences, both literary and personal, have melded together into a creative quest. The result has produced a superb story teller as is indelibly reflected in this thick book of essays.

     Arguably, “True to Herself”, has a Vermont flavor to it that more than just a little resembles other regional literary figures around the country. Personally, I believe her writing has the depth, quality, and transparency of a Eudora Welty. What Welty has done for Mississippi and the Deep South, Alison has done, in a similar way; for Vermont.

     The essays range from the time of her birth in Chicago to her family’s move to Connecticut right after sixth grade. She describes her pre-adolescent years as her tomboy phase. Early in her school career she became ill and missed many weeks of school. This may have been, I venture, the necessary catalyst for her career as a writer. It was during this time that she read and was read to by her mother and grandmother, and it was also the beginning of her  love affair with writing, as she put together little stories of her own.

     Alison has more than hinted that writing is not only an obsession but a life enhancing necessity, and her “Book of Life”, as she refers to her entire body of work is necessary in order for her to “…to know what I think or fully how I feel.”  Her marriage to Jim Kirby, a prominent literary scholar, in her late twenties, and her subsequent writing about their four years together until his untimely death in 1976, offers the reader the very best of her writing.

     It was during the early years of their marriage that she and Jim built a house on his parent’s property. This was a bitter-sweet time of her life, and the poignancy of it has given much depth and regional authenticity to her writing. There was tension between Jim and his father and this inevitably colored the couple’s lives together, but it was also a time of joy, learning and “living off the land.” Alison describes in this essay the spiritual and physical investment that she and Jim made in building their little house, growing their own food and even her first hunting expedition when she shot some partridges. As a result, they cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for both sets of parents, and this single act went a long way toward announcing their own independence as a couple.

     Like any work of this kind, written by someone who has mastered her art, it is impossible to describe the true craftsmanship inherent in “True to Herself”. I warn the reader, however, to set aside a big chunk of time for it. Once picked up this book is nearly impossible to put down again.
    

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