An outrageous, hilarious, and touching memoir of childhood by the youngest of nine children in a hardscrabble, beyond-eccentric Maine family.
With everything happening on Helen Peppe’s backwoods Maine farm— ferocious sibling rivalry, rock-bottom poverty, feral male chauvinism, sex in the hayloft—life was wild, and not just for the animals. Despite the chaos, in telling her family’s story, Peppe manages deadpan humor, an unerring eye for the absurd, and a touching compassion for her utterly overwhelmed parents. While her feisty resilience and candor will inevitably remind readers of Jeanette Wall or Mary Karr, Peppe’s wry insight and moments of tenderness with family and animals are entirely her own.