Mike Madison
Heyday Books
2006

Reviewed by: Jessi Hafer

Blithe Tomato is a self-proclaimed “wry look at farmer’s market society.” This is not accomplished with essays or with a single, linear story. Instead, author and grower Mike Madison tells us pieces of stories about the individuals he meets at other farms, in his community, and at the farmer’s market. He also shares the tasks he completes through the year.

Each chapter is fairly short, with most of them being about three pages long. As I was reading, I would trick myself into thinking I could read just one (or maybe two) of the chapters as a short break from my day. But then, next thing I knew, I’d be going strong reading my tenth chapter of the sitting – a lovely trap to fall into (unless you were supposed to be doing something else!).

While the characters Madison introduces us to are all interesting in their own ways, the strongest character is the author himself. The short chapters are laced with honest observations and philosophical interpretations. In complaining about the gophers that attack parts of his plants (and explaining the economics and biology of these attacks), Madison links the gophers to humans: “[The gopher] is there to mock us by clumsily imitating us, and to remind us of our own environmental crimes.”

In explaining the neighborhood dogs kept in small pens, Madison points out that “the dignity of human labor has eroded, and the fortunes of dogs have declined correspondingly. The humans are confined in their cubicles, and the dogs in their pens. The modern human… barks half-heartedly, wanly protesting his fate.” Madison tells us about an economically successful farmer named Bruce: “Perhaps Bruce has noticed that in our society there is almost no relationship between the contribution a person makes and how much he is paid, and under the circumstances, why not stand in the ranks of the overpaid?”

By the time Madison says, “In grade school we are taught to admire people who change the world – Eli Whitney and Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers. We are taught this because it is to the benefit of the ruling powers of society to have such people around. But to some of us it is obvious that the world has changed in the last few hundred years for the worse rather than the better, and that those champions of change might better be reckoned culprits then heroes,” well, by then I’m about ready to run off and live and work on a farm somewhere. Fortunately, Madison never becomes scolding of his reader, and his philosophical, thought-provoking moments are interspersed with his keen observations and playful writing. So instead, I signed up for a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and quickly devoured (and profoundly enjoyed) the rest of Blithe Tomato.