A riveting, often hilarious story of an adventurous life as an anarchist drifter and tree farmer.
In this debut memoir, Pfeiffer recounts his journeys to various parts of the world before he returned to Maine to become an independent tree farmer.
In the winter of 1970, the author left his central Maine commune to travel to Berkeley, California, to protest the Vietnam War. After a series of anti-establishment scrapes, including battles with police, Pfeiffer headed back east and ended up in Boston, driving a taxi. The tension of the job, during which he was robbed at knifepoint, and the increasingly lunatic atmosphere of the collective where he lived sent him fleeing back to rural Maine, where he talked an old friend into selling him a hundred-acre woodlot. With his girlfriend, “the Feminist Fatale,” he built a cabin on the shore of a pond on his new woodlot and drifted into a logger’s life. After a number of false starts (including a six-month stint in jail for “gardening to endanger”—growing a large crop of marijuana in the potato patch), Pfeiffer managed to purchase the equipment he needed to become an independent tree farmer. A hard chance, in logging terminology, refers to harvesting a bunch of thinner trees rather than one or two big ones. It’s the most difficult way to collect a given amount of lumber but it's often the only option. Pfeiffer’s life, as recounted here, is a reflection of hard chance, as he generally pursued the riskiest courses of action instead of choosing smoother paths. The memoir occasionally drifts into pretentiousness, such as when it conflates the author’s life with that of Moby-Dick’s protagonist, Ishmael. Overall, however, Pfeiffer’s voice is strong enough to deliver a rollicking and sometimes painfully honest tale of self-discovery. In it, he shows how he matures from the rage-filled radical of his youth to a peaceful (or at least resigned) adult, thanks to the serene Maine woods and the support of his circle of local and back-to-the-land friends.
A riveting, often hilarious story of an adventurous life as an anarchist drifter and tree farmer.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63381-020-4
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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