Toil: Building Yourself - Hardcover

Procter, Jody

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1890132675 ISBN 13: 9781890132675

Publisher: Chelsea Green, 2000

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

An unvarnished look at the frustrations, hazards and rewards of building a house, this journal doubles as a search for self. Procter, who died in 1998 at age 55, was a carpenter, novelist, essayist, performance artist, actor and TV producer. A Harvard graduate from an old Boston family "saturated with New England Puritanism," he rode the countercultural wave to California in 1968, where he remained until he moved to Oregon in 1991. In this diary of a seven-month house-building project (1994-1995), Procter, a recovered alcoholic and drug addict, meditates and recites prayers while nailing down particleboard and learning self-acceptance and humility as "a $10-an-hour grunt carpenter." Along with a candid account of the on-the-job obstacles he has facedAa bad back, bouts of depression, fear of heights, grinding routine, a vandal who leaves his graffiti signatureAmuch of the drama comes from the friction among the members of his construction crew. Procter's boss, Vern, is a dour Vietnam veteran, suspicious of the ex-hippie author. Bud, Vern's son, is surly and attends to his year-old daughter undergoing cancer chemotherapy. Brian, Procter's co-worker and sometime ally, is macho, bossy, and talks and sings incessantly. Somehow, the houseAbuilt alongside a golf course with Plexiglas shields to protect windows from stray ballsAtakes shape, despite screwups, accidents and occasional disputes with the client, an acupuncturist and painter. This self-absorbed journal convincingly describes work as an attempt to achieve a state of flow, a rare balance between materials, tools, mind, heart and the task at hand. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

This is the diary of a framing carpenter as he helps build a medium-fancy house in a middle-class Oregon neighborhood, a house the likes of which he and his fellow carpenters could never afford. One can share Procter's glory in small tasks well done and learn a great deal about modern carpentry here. But despite the fact that Jesus was a carpenter, Procter's attempts to find spiritual meaning in his work are a stretch. A child of the sixties, Procter spent a lifetime finding himself, worshiping the false gods of alcohol and drugs, finally returning to carpentry and fatherhood as things he was good at. He'd been trying to write for a long time, and here he found a workable method: record with complete candor what you see in front of you, then refine it to its essence. Unfortunately, he died before he could see his name in print. He was 55. His gentle, sensitive, hard-won book could have begun a fine career. John Mort

About this edition

• Publisher: Chelsea Green
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1890132675
• ISBN 13: 9781890132675
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 225