4 out of 4 stars
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I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I decided to read Gardening with Guns: A Memoir by AJ Wootton. Members of my family farm and hunt, but I didn't know how the two interests would come together in a memoir. Did Wootton shoot the vegetables? I wanted to find out.
The book opens with Wootton going to a job interview. She is clearly smart, attractive, and seems to have her life in order. Of course, people try to come across strong on job interviews, and success is not always a product of having had an easy life. I like Wootton from page one, and she grows on me from there. She comes off kind of "bigger than life" at first and then more like a best friend with real concerns.
Once grounded in the preface, I find myself on a journey that goes back to Wootton's childhood with chapters shifting along the timeline. This is not distracting. It feels more like a conversation where I might catch up with an old friend. Wootton references something from years prior when something current sparks her memory. The book really is quite seamless even with a lot of different themes across a lot of years.
Some of the Wootton's life stories are rather tragic. Poverty is not pretty. Divorce and incest are not pretty. These things do happen, and talking about them is the best way of preventing them from continuing to happen. While some readers may prefer to avoid such themes, this is not a book of lurid details. The author shares the basics and spends more time writing about her efforts to change her circumstances with concrete actions. When she does not have acceptable clothing for school, she gets a newspaper route. Things like that make me like and respect her.
As the book spins forward, it becomes clear that the past does have an impact on the future. Although the author does not want to replicate any of her parents' mistakes, she must face a serious problem within her own marriage. Wootton's rule for life was that she would not put her own children through divorce. In her own life circumstances, she has to give that another look. This is very relatable. We can't always control life, and we sure can't control the actions of others.
I really liked that Wootton opened up and shared her life experiences and allowed readers to join her as she learned and grew. It was rather shocking when a close family member committed suicide near the start of the book. I can only say that the same is also shocking in real life. It does help when others are open about things like this happening. We can't fix the things that we don't talk about. Wootton talks. I like that.
The only part of the book that I didn't really like was the ending. It is hard to end a memoir, because life does go on. In the case of this book, it just seemed like the book was so meaningful that the ending was lacking. It felt like the author just stopped suddenly. There were earlier points in the book that would have made for more solid conclusions, and the book could have been extended just a bit for better closure. Then again, real life is not always tidy, and slices of life are not always smooth and even. Maybe gardens and guns do not really make sense in the same title, and maybe the point is that there are always more answers.
This is one of the most interesting memoirs I've read, and I've read a ton of memoirs. I don't hesitate to rate Wootton's memoir four out of four stars, and I'd certainly be happy to see her write more books. She has a real gift with words and with stories.
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Gardening With Guns
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