8vo, 135 pages, clothbacked boards, inked Cape Cod name on endpaper; corner of top flap has a soft crease. Signed by the Author on the title-page. Illustrated by the Author. Blurbed by Bill McKibben and Luis Alberto Urrea.

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Bibliographic Details

Title

A WILD, RANK PLACE One Year on Cape Cod

Publisher

Univesity Press of New England ( 1997 )

Publication Date

1997

Language

English

ISBN 10

0874518024

ISBN 13

9780874518023

Binding

Hardcover

Edition

First Edition.

Condition

Fine

Dust Jacket Condition

near fine

Signed

Signed by Author(s)

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About this title

Synopsis

Cape Cod, that sandy, wind-swept enchantress, has captivated many writers, among them Henry David Thoreau, whose descriptions of that "wild, rank place" have fired the imaginations of not one but many generations. Among Thoreau's literary progeny is David Gessner, but this book goes far beyond the naturalist's focus on the transcendent beauty of the landscape. Rather, Gessner combines his deeply felt sense of place with observations of the Cape's people and with insights about his family, himself, and his art. In a series of interconnected personal essays, he explores his response to his own recently cured cancer and to the lung cancer that is killing his father. Issues of life and death intertwine with images of a land that Gessner finds curiously healing: "Here thoughts are swamped by the smells, sounds, and sights of place. The gentle hypnotic lapping of waves. A prehistoric cormorant on a slick black rock. The delicate lacework of sea grass roots breaking down through a ledge of sand."

Gessner's introspection during a year spent writing in the family's weathered cottage portrays another struggle, too. For a young writer just beginning his career, such mighty literary forebears as Thoreau can be imposing, if not paralyzing. Yet the process of sorting through and making peace with the memories of his genetic father gives Gessner the power to declare artistic independence from his literary one. Seeing "something tremendously heroic" about his father's determination to perform mundane tasks in the face of imminent death brings Gessner to realize that "our minds have minds of their own. Reality is fabulous, yes, but we also crave something more. Symbol, perhaps. Meaning." In the end, what Cape Cod comes to mean for Gessner is not just freedom from the past, but love and nobility in the face of death.

About the Authors

DAVID GESSNER, author of Under the Devil's Thumb (1999) and Return of the Osprey (2001), teaches creative nonfiction at Harvard Extension School.

David Gessner teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

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Joyce And Company, established 1975, works out of an office near Chicago's Loop. There are usually 15-20,000 books on-site and available for browsing. Mr. Joyce was a founding partner of the former Chicago Rare Book Center, of Chicago and Evanston, Illinois. Proprietor Tom Joyce appeared regularly as the book appraiser on "The Appraisal Fair", seen on Home And Garden Television, HGTV. We still do appraisals on a wide variety of subjects, from literature to history, fine books, children's, presses, theology, law, medicine, maps, autographs. These topics are reflected in our inventory, and much more, including Sherlockiana. In addition to regional institutions nearby Chicago and Illinois, we have been able to place rare materials with the American Antiquarian Society, The Library of Congress, The Bodleian Library, Harvard and Yale Universities, the Presidential Libraries of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, et cetera.

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