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|---|---|---|
Searching... Jefferson Public Library | LP 307.72 CUNNINGHAM | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
For anyone who has ever wanted a country house, this account of a young woman from the Bronx improbably finding her place in the country is a breath of fresh Atlantic air. This is a lovely and lyrical account, filled with charm and wit, and of finding one's true home.
Author Notes
Laura Shaine Cunningham is the mother of two daughters and divides her time between Stone Ridge, New York and New York City.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her well-received memoir, Sleeping Arrangements (1989), Cunningham chronicled her years growing up in the Bronx. Now, in a book dedicated to all the city people "who love nature with a passion that is near demented in its innocence," the playwright and journalist recounts a lifelong love of greenery, and the pleasure and frustration she has found living in the Shawangunk Mountains of New York. As a child, Cunningham and her unmarried mother, Rose, were often forced to share cramped apartments with relatives, though they dreamed of owning "a private home" in the country. Then, when Cunningham was eight, her mother died. Years later, as a young married woman, she rented a house in a suburb of New York. Although she reveled in easy access to forest and mountain, the gated community didn't satisfy Cunningham's fantasy of country life, and after some 10 years of searching, she found her dream house in the mountains. Adjacent to a working dairy farm, the Inn was part of a huge estate that a titled English couple were gradually selling off, although they remained as neighbors. Cunningham recounts with wry humor her conversion from innocent newcomer to country sophisticate, a process that included raising chickens (whose eggs, she figures, cost her $25 a dozen), feeding two ornery goats and tending an ill-fated garden. Her pastoral life has been interrupted by serious illness, counterbalanced by her joy in adopting her two little girls. She passes quickly over the breakup of her marriage and concludes by describing her uneasy adjustment to new neighborsÄa swami and his followers. Throughout, Cunningham's lovely portrait of country scenes will engage readers who, like her, have dreamed of the glories of a rural retreat. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Cunningham chronicles her lifelong dream of owning a home in the country in this ode to all things green and earthy. As a child, she and her mother spent many of their summer vacations in the parks and old houses of New York City. Her mother died when the author was a young child, and for the rest of her life--and in this book--Cunningham seems to be reaching for her mother again. She and her husband, and then Cunningham herself after her divorce, carve out a life for themselves on an estate in upstate New York. Dealing with ancient water pipes, a disastrous cistern-turned-bathing-pool, willful dwarf goats, and more chickens than she could count, she turns the tribulations of country living into hilarious and cautionary anecdotes. Read this because you want your own place in the country; read this before you own a place in the country! --Ellie Barta-Moran
Library Journal Review
Cunningham's memoir, a case for creative nonfiction, embodies Robert Frost's remark that "locality gives art." Now a playwright and journalist whose fiction has been published in The New Yorker and elsewhere, she offers compelling descriptions of her childhood in the Bronx, of a first country home 40 miles north of the city in a gated community of rentals and, later, of a real home in the country surrounded by farmers, animals, and other eccentric life forms. Humor serves as a cornerstone of her well-crafted prose and provides a counterbalance to the sometimes serious experiences of a child, and then an adult, in search of a country home. This memoir draws you in as a novel might, capturing your interest with plot and charactersDCunningham's mother, Rosie; her uncles Len and Gabe, who become "guardians of her fate"; and an intriguing array of neighbors are well worth meeting. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.DSue Samson, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.