Reviewed work(s): Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese by Brad Kessler

Abstract

Goat Song is an American pastoral. It opens with the author, novelist Brad Kessler, moving away from society (New York City) and toward nature (a seventy-five-acre Vermont farm) and chronicles an experiment in agrarian living. It is an engrossing memoir, revealing how animal husbandry tends to the herder’s soul as well as to livestock. But Kessler does not proselytize. He grows to love living with goats, as he strives to make delicious cheeses. This seems to be a genuine revelation, reason alone to write a book.