Fiction. In this sequel to THE LONG RIVER HOME, the characters move on into the turbulence and idealism of the late 1960s and early 1970s on an Appalachian farm commune.

"Forbidden love. Counter-culture. The shadow of Vietnam. Sexual revolution. Social unrest. Marijuana and LSD. In this intriguing coming-of-age novel by Larry Smith, THE FREE FARM, we journey back to America's turbulent late 60s and early 70s.... Smith provides a unique window into Lee's young life that is driven by idealism, love of Emerson and Thoreau, and devotion to his beautiful partner, who practices Zen, meditates, and can fix cars.... In this realistic yet often surprising and tender novel, a quoted line from 'The Waking' by Theodore Roethke serves as a guidepost: 'I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow / I feel my fate in what I cannot fear / I learn by going where I have to go.'"
—Laura Treacy Bentley, author of LAKE EFFECT

Author City: HURON, OH USA

Larry Smith is a native of Mingo Junction, Ohio, in Appalachia's Panhandle region of the Ohio River Valley. A graduate of Mingo Central High School, Muskingum College, and Kent State University, he has authored seven books of poetry, a book of memoirs, three books of fiction, two biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese. Now a professor emeritus of Bowling Green State University's Firelands College, he is the director of The Firelands Writing Center there and of Bottom Dog Press. Smith has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature to Italy. He and his wife Ann are the parents of three adult children, and live along the shores of Lake Erie in Huron, Ohio.