BEYOND BLACK BEAR LAKE

by Anne Labastille ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 1986

The author of Woodswoman, Assignment: Wildlife and Women and Wilderness describes her further adventures as a free-lance writer living alone in a cabin in New York's Adirondack State Park. One of the problems with Labastille's quest for woodsy solitude is that she likes to write books about it. Her first, Woodswoman, turned her, by her own account, into such a celebrity that she has had to move deeper into the forest to escape the intrusions of ""strangers appearing in the night, crank calls, piles of fan mail, big boats, gas motors, people, planes, and pollution."" But despite the fact that she now has locks on her doors, ""two German shepherds to guard me and a pistol under my pillow,"" she still feels ill at ease with the world, especially when those planes swoop over when she is sunbathing. All would be forgiven, however, if she could somehow explain her distrust of everybody and everything but herself in prose that did justice to what she calls her ""small rebellion."" But unlike Henry David Thoreau, whom she considers her spiritual mentor (she names her second cabin after him and quotes him throughout), Labastille is not a writer of depth, subtlety or wit; and if she shares with her 19th-century forebear a dislike of the ""so complex and materialistic"" world around her, her constant assertion of her own needs and desires in the face of those of the community is chillingly reminiscent, not of Thoreau, but of some 20th-century housing developer. This is particularly apparent in a chapter entitled ""Big Brother is Watching,"" in which this self-professed naturalist complains about the fact that ""our mountains and lakes are now harnessed by regulations."" One can't help wondering where the Adirondacks, or the rest of the state for that matter, would be without these regulations, which protect the wilderness from incursions by builders. But when they start to ""thwart"" this author's ""dream,"" she calls them ""unbalanced."" A questionable attempt at self-glorification.

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION