It’s hard to make straight lines stick to the earth,
writes Robert Leo Heilman in Overstory: Zero; Real Life in Timber
Country, and even harder in hilly Douglas County, Ore. In his book
of 32 essays, Heilman returns to this theme again and again; he
likes the earth’s reluctance to bend to blueprints, whether he is
replanting a clearcut or laying out a house. Heilman is similarly
happy to report on his valley’s social scene – an alcoholic
hitchhiker’s last ride, the annual frenzy of American Legion
baseball and his son’s coming of age.
The book’s
title is a forestry term designating the height of the top layer in
the forest canopy after a clearcut. Heilman himself belongs to a
proud underclass of tree-planters, “winos and wetbacks, hillbillies
and hippies,” who have replanted acres of clearcuts. Though he
recounts instances of frustrating, occasionally violent
miscommunication between college-educated foremen and
woods-educated workers, Heilman is never despairing. When he must
sell his milk cow after an early 1980s depression cleans out the
folks who used to buy his milk, Heilman is grateful, at least, to
hold on to his wife and son. In his mind, rural communities are
stronger, funnier and much more real for the conflicts they
suffer.
Sasquatch Books, 1008 Western Ave.,
Seattle, WA 98104. Paper: $14.95. 221 pages.
*Sarah Dry
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A timber country memoir.
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