'This was how the world could be': Musician Neko Case writes of Vermont in new memoir

Neko Case lived a difficult childhood. The Grammy-nominated musician grew up primarily in Washington state, the only child of a young couple that soon divorced and rarely showed signs to their daughter that they loved her.

She did have one glorious summer in her youth, when she, her mother and her stepfather lived in Vermont. It was a place where Case discovered people could love one another, unconditionally.

She writes about that in her memoir " The Harder I Fight the More I Love You ," which published Jan. 28. The book is number five on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction.

Case's debut book evokes " Crying in H Mart ," the popular 2021 memoir by Michelle Zauner of indie-pop act Japanese Breakfast. Both tell of girls growing up in the Pacific Northwest who would become successful musicians while grappling with complicated feelings about their mothers. Case's youth, however, was bleaker and more harrowing than that depicted by Zauner.

Case never mentions specifically in the book that she moved to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont about 15 years ago. She does write fondly about the summer and fall she spent as a 12-year-old that lured her back to the state many years later. Here are some highlights of what she wrote about Vermont, in a chapter titled "Garbage Mountain."

Living in Waterville, working in Stowe

Case writes of her mother and stepfather, Bill, moving to a house "in the middle of nowhere" in Waterville, the small Lamoille County town near Johnson. The house came with an outbuilding containing junk left behind by previous residents, a heap that gives the chapter "Garbage Mountain" its name.

"My parents worked in Stowe, a little over a forty-minute drive away, and I was left alone during the days," Case writes. "I had soon done everything visible to me: walked the fields being retaken by milkweed and goldenrod, poked around in the old barn, looked in the pond for bullfrogs to catch, paged through my stepdad's archaeology books, played with the two plastic horses I'd stuffed in my suitcase from my dad's house."

Mad magazine and a life-changing summer

Case writes of discovering a 10-year-old copy of Mad magazine in Garbage Mountain and devouring its contents. When she thinks of that magazine now, she thinks of that idyllic summer in Vermont.

"Over the next few weeks I read through it hundreds of times," Case writes. "The women in it were all booby stereotypes, but there was Spy vs. Spy, and Al Jaffe's crazy-detailed, surreal drawings. Every part of that issue is tattooed in my brain, and acts like a memory portal to the very slow, beautiful, heavy-scented summer that changed my life for the better, showing me a different, kinder world."

Vermont bottle law pays for a hamster

Case describes going to a pet shop with her mother where she saw hamsters and begged her mother to buy one. "You'll need to get a job," her mother told the 12-year-old.

"Vermont had a five-cent bounty on cans and bottles, as well as enough good old boys to throw them out of the windows of their cars and trucks at high speed," according to Case.

"Hamster money!"

"I went every morning before the sun got too high."

"After a few weeks and a well-timed five-dollar bill from my Gramma Fortini, Bill's mom, I had enough money. I'm sure my mom was pissed, but she and Bill took me to the pet store and I picked out a fuzzy blond hamster and named him Alexander the Great, Alex for short."

Love for horses

Case writes about meeting a neighboring family. Ilene and Duck had two daughters, including Annie, who was about Case's age. Case's lifelong love affair with horses was in full bloom.

"Turning to me, (Ilene) said, "You should come down and play with the girls! Do you like horses? We have two.'"

"The girls were silent on the subject."

"'OK,' I said. I sounded sheepish but inside I was exploding: HORSES!"

Happy in Vermont

Case was happy in Vermont. She didn't want to return to her "lonely school in Washington." She talked her mother and Bill into letting her stay for the fall semester as they headed back to the Pacific Northwest.

"I loved the weather in Vermont; I loved the trees and the fairy-tale forests," Case writes. "I loved our friendly neighbors, and most of all I loved my new friend and her family and the way they made me feel about myself. I still barely saw my mom and Bill, but Ilene and Duck showed me a tremendous amount of affection and care."

Winning a gymkhana event

Case and Annie entered a horse named Gypsy in a gymkhana event, which Case describes as "games on horseback, not so much about looking pretty or wearing fancy outfits." The girl with low self-esteem began to gain confidence.

Gypsy was announced as the event's grand champion.

"My knees went soft," Case writes. "Annie whooped, and I whooped, and we hugged hard and jumped up and down like lunatics…"

"It was (and remains) one of the best days of my life. Ilene had shown so much love and respect and belief in us that we had believed we could triumph, too. This was how the world could be when someone really loved you."

'This pile of unwanted things'

Case writes about "learning to push back" against her mother, "to shout at what wasn't fair, even when I wasn't quite sure what to shout."

"At least part of what emboldened me was the kindness I'd experienced with Annie's family. I now knew that a gentler way of being existed, and that knowledge mixed with my defiance. It was as if Garbage Mountain, this pile of unwanted things, started shaking itself to life."

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com .

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Neko Case writes of idyllic Vermont summer in musician's new memoir