Books
Where We Land: Stories
(Brighthorse Books, 2016)
Daryl Farmer writes about parts of the country where dreams go to be born or to die, places where the most unforgiving landscape is the human heart. Set in the western United States and in the far reaches of Alaska, the stories of WHERE WE LAND give us characters trying hard to negotiate external and internal boundaries. They find themselves far beyond the edge of where and what they’ve been, and they’re working hard either to find their way home or to break new ground inside themselves.
“In the tradition of Jack London, Richard Ford and Annie Proulx, Daryl Farmer writes sublime western landscapes, rural and wild, that illuminate, threaten and redeem (sometimes all in the same lyric moment) the characters who inhabit them. Farmer’s people are beset with hard luck and big dreams involving grizzly bears and frozen places; their hearts are shuttered, but not silenced, and they look to wild things to tell them how to grow up, grow old, move on. Above all else, these twelve compelling and complex stories remind us that we come from the wilderness, and suggest it might behoove us to return.”–Pam Houston, author of CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED
“Daryl Farmer writes with brutal elegance and loving wonder about the misfits of Alaska, the stony, tree-studded, snowbound, diesel- and whiskey-soaked stage for the excellent stories in WHERE WE LAND.”–Ben Percy, author of THE DEAD LANDS, RED MOON, and THE WILDING
Bicycling beyond the Divide
(University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
In this wise and funny book about biking our American West, Daryl Farmer journeys across miles and through memory to self-discovery, and it’s our good fortune to come along—without expending nearly so many calories.”—Gregory Martin, author of Mountain City
“Bicycling beyond the Divide did what all great books do: it told me about me. In its tale of a journey made by two different men—both of them Daryl Farmer—this book offers us not only moving vistas and meaningful people, but also hope, that rarest of literary commodities these days. I didn’t want this to end.”—Bret Lott, author of Jewel
“Reading Bicycling beyond the Divide was the best vacation I took all year—in a year I traveled to Mexico, France, and Italy. Even if you have never ridden a bike or set foot in the West, this book will make both a part of your life as vivid as any trip you have taken. Daryl Farmer’s journey—into the heart of a land, of a time, into the very nature of memory and experience—is one I will never forget.”—Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of Space