Trauma Farm - (Greystone Nature Classics) by Brian Brett (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A Times Literary Supplement and Globe and Mail Book of the Year

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Canadian Non-Fiction Prize

"A wonderful meditation on farm life and by extension life itself ... told intelligently and often humorously, by a writer with a welcome fresh sharp eye."--Peter Matthiessen, author of Shadow Country and The Snow Leopard

In this new special edition of a beloved rural memoir, a farmer's intimate bond with his land and animals reveals hard-won truths about trauma, endurance, and belonging.

From the straining of muscles at dawn chores to the last check of the animals under a darkening sky, Brian Brett brings readers along as he moves through a day on his farm, tending to animals, soil, and machinery while reckoning with the quiet weight of trauma that saturates the land.

Both an unflinching memoir and an irreverent natural history of the small mixed farm, Trauma Farm wanders backward and forward in time, from childhood chores to present scars, from ancient Babylonian planting cycles to the pressures of globalization. Brett lingers on the feel of earth in his hands, the steam of breath from cattle in winter, the small decisions that mean life or death for vulnerable creatures. Along the way, Brett reflects on the costs of such a life--the scars etched into bodies, the grief carried for animals and people lost, and the fierce bonds that hold a rural community together.

Meditating on the nature of care, the ethics of killing, the strange tenderness of routine, and the cycles of planting, harvest, and decay, the book balances raw realism with lyrical wonder. It offers a fierce critique of romanticized visions of the countryside while celebrating the miracles of birth, weather, and endurance that confront the farm every day.

Passionate, practical, and frequently hilarious, this is an unforgettable portrait of one farm and the people and animals who live there. Trauma Farm is a powerful reminder of our entanglement with the natural world, and of the quiet heroism required simply to go on.

Review Quotes

A Times Literary Supplement and Globe and Mail Book of the Year
Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Canadian Non-Fiction Prize

"[Brett's] writing is so vivid, the observations so telling, that a reader can virtually feel the smooth heft of a collected egg in the palm of a hand."
--Globe and Mail

"A stretch more provocative than similar rural memoirs, and an altogether compelling read."
--Publishers Weekly

"A wonderful meditation on farm life and by extension life itself ...told intelligently and often humorously, by a writer with a welcome fresh sharp eye."
--Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

"A superb, wise, witty, and vivid weave of barnyard tales with deep insights into the fraught symbiosis of animals, plants, and man."
--Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress

"A touching and tender memoir, at once humorous and profound, filled with wonderful insights about life as a poet and accidental farmer."
--Wade Davis

"[Brett] comes with the gumboot poet's fearless tongue to speak truth to those who would reduce the life-and-death work of farming into a pastoral idyll. ...If it's hope you're looking for, you'll find it in the fortifying madness of Trauma Farm."
--James MacKinnon, author of Plenty (aka The 100-Mile Diet)

"It is a striking, stunning book, easily one of the best of the year."
--National Post

About the Author

Brian Brett (1950-2023) was a celebrated poet, novelist, and memoirist whose lyrical work championed nature, humanity, and rural life. In recognition of his lifetime contribution to Canadian literature, he was honored in 2016 with the Writer's Trust Matt Cohen Award. His tender, rebellious, and deeply observant voice continues to resonate long after his passing.