A Family Place : A Man Returns to the Center of His Life

The writer describes how, yearning for a remote getaway spot, he and his wife bought 160 acres in Nova Scotia and, enlisting their children and their daughter's carpenter boyfriend, built a home there. 25,000 first printing. National ad/promo.

Tired of the frenetic pace of his life, worried that his 30-year marriage was in trouble, novelist Gaines ( Stay Hungry ) convinced his wife Patricia that they needed a change of scene. In 1990 they bought 160 acres on the northeast coast of Nova Scotia where they would construct a cabin and rebuild their lives together. The following summer the author, his wife, their three adult children, some friends and a local carpenter began work on the cabin. They lived in tents, without electricity or running water. In this charming account of that summer, Gaines combines the story of building the cabin with glimpses into his family history and a portrait of the Acadian community that surrounds his property. This is a heartwarming memoir of shared experiences and rediscovery.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A world-weary, middle-aged novelist (Dangler, 1980, etc.) and sportswriter retreats to the wilds of Nova Scotia to build a house and rebuild his family. In the summer of 1989, Gaines and his wife Patricia, a painter, were separated and talking divorce. After three children and 30 years of marriage, they had grown apart--victims, not unlike Scott and Zelda, of the bitch goddess of success: Charles's first novel had recently been made into a movie, and he and Patricia were jet-setting about the country, flirting with movie stars and growing increasingly estranged from each other and the simple life they had once shared in rural New Hampshire. Although Gaines sidesteps the issue of whether he and Patricia were actually unfaithful, he nevertheless draws a compelling portrait of two people bent on destroying their marriage. After Patricia bottoms out and gives away all her jewelry, including her wedding and engagement rings, to street-people in New York, she decides to give the marriage another chance. In 1990, the Gaineses purchased 160 acres in Nova Scotia; the following summer, Charles, Patricia, their three grown children, and a handful of friends returned to build, with their own hands, their ``family place.'' Weaving together details of construction and carpentry with personal revelations about marriage and midlife, the narrative works as both a factual account of housebuilding and a poetic testimony of love lost and found. Neither sappy nor self-indulgent, and as compelling as Tracy Kidder's House: a beautifully written memoir sure to win Gaines a new following. (First printing of 25,000) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this memoir, Gaines writes of his quest for a simpler life and renewed family ties through moving to Nova Scotia and building a cabin. Separated from his wife and children, Gaines tires of the hedonistic lifestyle that has threatened to end his marriage; he seeks to solve his problems by a change of place. Like Thoreau, he explains step by step how he chose the site, purchased the land and materials, and then built the cabin, achieving the desired family togetherness as the project advanced. Introspective and sensitive, he reveals the joy to be found in rural Nova Scotia life and presents a view of coherence rare in today's fragmented families. Gaines should be a role model for men of the Nineties: strong and masculine, yet willing to reject the materialistic in order to nurture family relationships and find his center. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/93.
- Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.