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BOOK REVIEW: ‘Wild Mares’

A lesbian’s back-to-the-land life.

You were going to change the world. It’s true that you were one small voice, just one person with a vision, but you were sure it could be done. You were going to change the world, one corner at a time—starting with the one you called home. And in the new book Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life by Dianna Hunter, that’s sometimes all it takes.

Growing up in rural South Dakota, Hunter learned what “queer” was long before she understood her own sexuality. She was “seventeen, cosseted, closeted, and clueless” back then, but once she enrolled in college and started living in Minneapolis in an atmosphere of early-1970s feminism and LGBTQ activism, she “surprised” herself by coming out. 

By then, classmates had introduced her to new friends who then introduced her to a lesbian community that raised her consciousness. Hunter learned how to be an activist and help create safe places for lesbians to socialize. And when her friends began to think about establishing a collective farm in Minnesota, she was highly intrigued. 

“We were headed toward our dream and our vexation,” she says. “Women’s Land, Open to All Women.”

And it felt like the right “path to freedom.” At the first farm Hunter lived on, women and children shared the work and the bounty. “Voluntary poverty and group living” taught them that they could get by without much money, and they didn’t need men to care for livestock or outbuildings. Hunter soaked up every bit of information she could, and when it was time to move on, she and her next housemate rode their own horses more than 200 miles to another farm. 

Through the years, there were other farms and other horses. Friends and lovers came and went as societal attitudes also changed. Though she was now retired, Hunter was eventually able to buy and manage a dairy farm near Lake Superior. 

“To many onlookers,” she says, “our lesbian-feminist back-to-the-land dream must have seemed strange and unrealistic, but we were far from the only ones who dreamed it.”

“Utopia” is a word that author Dianna Hunter uses when recalling her first 15 years after coming out as a lesbian. No word could be more apt, because despite a few episodes of lack and hardship, Wild Mares makes that life sound positively serene.

And yet, there’s angst here, starting with the constant stream of people who move in and out of Hunter’s narrative, taking their drama with them and re-inserting it. After a while, it starts to seem like just more of the same, and character fatigue may begin to set in. (It doesn’t help that there are several farms involved, adding to the consternation.) 

Even so, Hunter’s introspection, her eagerness to do anything to find her “utopia,” and her love of the land all combine to make this book palatable. In the end, Wild Mares is a worthwhile look at non-traditional 20th-century farming, and at Midwestern lesbian history. Yes, the book is a little relentless in its overly-peopled narrative, but it’s also something different, for a change.

This article appears in the July 2018 edition of OutSmart magazine.

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Terri Schlichenmeyer

Terry Schlichenmeyer is a regular contributor to OutSmart Magazine.
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