Synopses & Reviews
When Donald Hall moved to his grandparents' New Hampshire farm in 1975, his work as a writer must have seemed remote from the harsh physical labor of his ancestors. Hall, a prize-winning poet and author of several dozen books, has devoted his life to the literary arts. In this paean to work, Hall reveals a similar kind of artistry in the lives of his grandparents, Kate and Wesley. From them he learned that the devotion to craft be it canning vegetables, writing poems, or carting manure creates its own special discipline and an "absorbedness" that no wage can compensate.
Hall has given us affectionate portraits of his New Hampshire clan in String Too Short to Be Saved, the Eagle Pond books, and the bestselling children's book Ox-Cart Man. In Life Work, we see how the writer has modeled his own life on his family's lives of work, solitude, and love. When Hall comes face to face with his own mortality halfway through writing this book, we understand both his obsession with work and its ultimate consolation.
Review
"The best new book I have read this year, of extraordinary nobility and wisdom. It will remain with me always." Louis Begley, The New York Times
Review
"A sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness....Life Work reads most of all like a first-person psychological novel with a poet named Donald Hall as its protagonist....Hall's particular talents ultimately are for the memoir, a genre in which he has few living equals. In his hands the memoir is only partially an autobiographical genre. He pours both his full critical intelligence and poetic sensibility into the form." Dana Gioia, Los Angeles Times
Review
"Hall...here offers a meditative look at his life as a writer in a spare and beautifully crafted memoir. Devoted to his art, Hall can barely wait for the sun to rise each morning so that he can begin the task of shaping words." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"I am delighted and moved by Donald Hall's Life Work, his autobiographical tribute to sheer work--as distinguished from labor--as the most satisfying and ennobling of activities, whether one is writing, canning vegetables or playing a dung fork on a New Hampshire farm." Paul Fussell, The Boston Globe
Synopsis
The distinguished poet on the meaning of work, solitude, and love in this extraordinary nobility and wisdom (The New York Times) When Donald Hall moved to his grandparents' New Hampshire farm in 1975, his work as a writer and a life devoted to the liteary arts must have seemed remote from the harsh physical labor of his ancestors. However, he reveals a similar kind of artistry in the lives of his grandparents, Kate and Wesley. From them he learned that the devotion to craft--be it canning vegetables, writing poems, or carting manure--creates its own special discipline and an absorbedness that no wage can compensate.
In this sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness (Los Angeles Times), we see how the writer has modeled his own life on his family's lives of work, solitude, and love. When Hall comes face to face with his own mortality halfway through writing this book, we understand both his obsession with work and its ultimate consolation.
Synopsis
The revered American Poet Laureate reflects on the meaning of work, solitude, and love with "extraordinary nobility and wisdom" (The New York Times) When Donald Hall moved to his grandparents' New Hampshire farm in 1975, his work as a writer and a life devoted to the literary arts must have seemed remote from the harsh physical labor of his ancestors. However, he reveals a similar kind of artistry in the lives of his grandparents, Kate and Wesley. From them, he learned that the devotion to craft--be it canning vegetables, writing poems, or carting manure--creates its own special discipline and an 'absorbedness' that no wage can compensate.
In this "sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness" (Los Angeles Times), we see how the writer has modeled his own life on his family's lives of work, solitude, and love. When Hall comes face to face with his own mortality halfway through writing this book, we understand both his obsession with work and its ultimate consolation.
About the Author
Donald Hall is the author of numerous prizewinning volumes of poetry, including The One Day, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, essays, children's books, and criticism. His new collection of short stories, The Willow Temple, will be published by Houghton Mifflin this spring.