Sometimes people have trouble separating the actress from the role. This appears to be true of many of the reviews of Bright Lights, Prairie Dust by Karen Grassle. People expect to read about a demure, near-perfect representative of what it means to be a mother. Instead, Grassle makes it clear she is the antithesis of Little House’s Ma. That’s not to say I didn’t have problems with the book, only that a lot of the criticism is based more on the fact that people can’t separate the actress from the role.

Grassle goes into incredible detail of her life, and sometimes it’s a bit too much. There’s an instance where she describes getting a pear from the market and eating it. I thought it was going to be a metaphor for something, but it wasn’t. I can’t tell how many pages she spent on it since I listened to the audiobook, but I’d guess it was about two pages about eating a pear. I’m sure it’s a core memory for her, but things like this could be edited out of the book with no problem. There are a number of instances of things like this. I think Grassle could have used a better editor.

Prior to her being cast as Ma on Little House, Grassle trained in theater for over a decade, including in London and New York. This was a time when you could be a “starving artist” and still manage to scrape by. I loved hearing about her experiences in San Francisco in the 1960s, especially at Berkeley. She was definitely a child of the 1960s and all that was romanticized about it.

The overall theme for the book, though, was her struggle with alcoholism. Her father was an alcoholic and she likely inherited it, not realizing that fact for a very long time. She doesn’t make excuses for it, but is honest about it and what it cost her over the years, especially in terms of relationships.

Once cast in Little House, it seemed she was finally catching a break in life. However, the fact that she was a feminist who stood up for herself seemed to grate against Michael Landon after the first season, when she asked for a substantial raise, as well as two episodes per season that focused on Ma. Grassle wanted to do more than serve breakfast while the family talked. Landon began to ignore her, as if she didn’t exist except when she was required to be on the set. When Grassle began watching the dailies because she wanted to learn more about production, she sat in the room listening to him degrade her as if she wasn’t there. This eroded her relationship with many of the cast, especially the younger ones who idolized Michael Landon. She did have a great relationship with a number of other people, including Katherine MacGregor who portrayed Mrs. Oleson.

This was beneficial, though, because it opened the door for her production of Battered. Back in the 1970s, there were few domestic violence shelters. Long before Farrah Fawcett starred in The Burning Bed, Grassle brought this issue to the forefront and got people talking. It wasn’t always an easy path, but in the end it was worth it. Battered brought her opportunities to speak about the issue to audiences around the country. She was also a feminist activist and spent a lot of time trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed.

Grassle read the audiobook herself, and I did like hearing her voice. I think she did an excellent job with the audiobook, and I could feel her emotions throughout her story. I just wished it had been edited a little more as I think in many places she was bogged down in memories that meant a lot to her, but felt like the reader or listener wouldn’t have missed out on anything if it hadn’t been there.

I came away from Bright Lights, Prairie Dust admiring Grassle a lot. She’s very liberal and was unafraid to stand up for herself. At the same time, she admits to her faults and what caused many problems for her through the years. In short, she’s a complicated person just like most of us. At the end, she admits to two abortions and describes the experience. One was illegal and the other legal. I think in this post Roe v. Wade world it’s important to hear this. I’m thankful she was honest with people, even if it went on a bit too long.