Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America's Edge
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From Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack, a passage through an America lived wild and off the grid, where along with independence and stunning views come fierce winds, neighbors with criminal pasts, and minimal government and medical services “In these dispatches, [Conover] invites readers to ride shotgun along an unraveling edge of the American West, where sepia-toned myths about making a fresh start collide with modern modes of alienation, volatility, and exile.... In a nation whose edges have come to define its center, this is essential reading.”—Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century In May 2017, Ted Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of life that is about living cheaply, on your own land—and keeping clear of the mainstream. The failed subdivisions of the enormous San Luis Valley make this possible. Five-acre lots on the high prairie can be had for five thousand dollars, sometimes less. Conover volunteered for a local group trying to prevent homelessness during the bitter winters. He encountered an unexpected diversity: veterans with PTSD, families homeschooling, addicts young and old, gay people, people of color, lovers of guns and marijuana, people with social anxiety—most of them spurning charity and aiming, and sometimes failing, to be self-sufficient. And more than a few predicting they’ll be the last ones standing when society collapses. Conover bought his own five acres and immersed himself for parts of four years in the often contentious culture of the far margins. He found many who dislike the government but depend on its subsidies; who love their space but nevertheless find themselves in each other’s business; who are generous but wary of thieves; who endure squalor but appreciate beauty. In their struggles to survive and get along, they tell us about an America riven by difference where the edges speak more and more loudly to the mainstream.
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Picked this up on a whim because like many during the early days of the pandemic, I dreamed about moving out to the middle of nowhere to escape people and the plague. Conover's experience and writing about actually doing it and reporting on its realities is personally delivered here. I won't say the pace is plodding, but he takes his time (maybe he's even on prairies time). All in all, glad I caught this one.
One of the best non-fiction of the year. Of course, we don't always get get full picture, but we get what people are ready to share, months after months, and I like it this way.
As a New Yorker currently living in the San Luis Valley, this book was a must-read for me. An in-depth look at some of my more rural neighbors - quite eye-opening as I live on the very edge of these flats and the town of San Luis. Having actually bartered with the Grubers ourselves, it was so incredibly interesting to learn more about the people and the history of the area and how it came to be split up into these subdivisions that look like someone just walked away from, as does much of what is out here. But to also hear more about the very different way of life for many of these people, going on just miles from my home, was almost overwhelming and somewhat scary, to be honest. Sadly, I admit I've been told by long-time locals to just avoid those out on the flats, and hearing the author's experience with many of them while working with the La Puenta shelter, I now tend to agree even more. As someone who wanders these areas often, especially out by Lobatos Bridge and the Rio Grande, I now find myself staring even harder at many places I pass – shacks, campers, old trailers, compound-looking places, pondering if they are lived in or not, and now often find myself thinking back to this book so often, wondering “Is that where Ted was talking about?” While it's not been all great news to read, as we also ended up here to be left alone, we are of the professional, employed, liberal, democratic, law/rule-following kind of want-to-be-left-alone people, and for me, hearing some of this was heartbreaking. Things like, I have similar thoughts as the author about how the Gruber girls will turn out.. as well as all the other kids being raised in this type of environment. Can't even get into thinking about the ones we don't even know about yet.. the ones hidden away out in some cold, tiny trailer.. like all the kids out in Amalia that they found piled in a trailer together, not going to school, not having clean clothes or a place to shower, or food - all things you'd get your kids yanked for in a second in New York. Life is just very different out here, that's for sure and Ted did an amazing job of sharing that from the inside and from a POV that most of us will never see be able to grasp. Now I just wonder, are these people now just out there creating the next generation of flat-living, off-grid, anti-government, anti-science, gun-loving conservatives? Sadly that thought makes me feel like maybe I just don't belong here, as these are not the people I want to be my neighbors. So to say this book was incredibly insightful and taught me more about the area than I've learned from living here is a serious understatement. Now I just want to recommend it to anyone who lives in or around the San Luis Valley!? While there is much more to the SLV than just these people (something I'm now reminding myself of) I'm impressed that Ted Conover braved the valley with as much depth and openness, willing to learn without prejudice, so that he can share this incredibly insightful look at some of the people of the SLV. And for working so hard to try to help and understand them by truly immersing himself in the cheap land Colorado, off-grid experience.
