Synopses & Reviews
This mature, exquisite collection of personal essays by Hilary Masters offers a rare pleasure. Here are meditations and reflections distilled in fine prose from a long and varied life—musings that, in the distinguished tradition of essays carried on since the days of Montaigne, articulate the piquant insights of the writers experience. In this collection, one of the most illustrious contemporary essayists transfigures incidents and observations into something far more—a finely crafted window into the workings of experience and memory. Masters makes readers privy to a youthful love affair; an adolescents discovery in Defoes Robinson Crusoe of the key to an immigrant grandfathers plight; and the significance of growing trees, making gravy, and playing cards. He draws intimate portraits of such characters as his famous father, Edgar Lee Masters; his literary friends Wright Morris and William Humphrey; and the strangers who both complicated and enriched his life. In glimpses of moments from naive youth through heady young adulthood to aging maturity, these essays tell the story of a life deeply, broadly, and thoroughly lived.
Review
“Hilary Masters offers humor, insight, anecdote, food-appreciation and more—all while demonstrating the ability to zig (or zag) when others around him would forge straight ahead. . . . In exploring the past as it lives in the present, Masters proves a companionable and erudite guide.”—Pittsburgh City Weekly
Review
“[Masterss] prose seems effortless. . . . This collection is worth reading for those who have not encountered Masters before. It will especially appeal to readers interested in the crafting of essays.”—Library Journal
Review
“Because of his age, broad experience, travels, open-hearted curiosity, and knowledge, Hilary Masterss book In Rooms of Memory has the kind of reflective depth that few such collections possess. It is gorgeously written and organized, a book of connections—between self and other, past and present, art and life.”—Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory
Review
"In Rooms of Memory is a testament to Hilary Masters's expertise and inspiration as an essayist, examining memory, imagination, and autobiography with subtlety and skillful continuity."—Mardi Stewart, Pleiades
Review
"In these luminous essays on wanderlust, Caswell . . . embraces travel writer Bruce Chatwin's contention that walking is a poetic act that can cure the world of its ills. . . . His travels culminate in a Death Valley vision that replaces his pervasive sense of dislocation with the answer to a question that has nagged him for years: what is home? "—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"[Kurt Caswell's] writing brings every sense to bear, and days later you will still have an exotic smell lingering in your nostrils."—Craig Childs, Orion
Review
"An Inside Passage celebrates the best of ecopsychology in contemporary American nature writing. It explores the complex interrelationship between the trajectory of our lives and the places in which we live them."—Gioia Woods, ISLE
Review
“The author moves from place to place, examining the natural world around him with scrupulous care and a keen, sympathetic eye, and examining even more intensely the seasonal transformations in his own heart and mind. By the end, I felt I had traveled along with him, sharing his sorrows and his epiphanies, his vigor and courage and ceaseless quest for experience and understanding. This is a memoir of extraordinary revelation, which transforms the reader as well as the author.”—Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books
Review
“Kurt Caswell has mastered the noble tradition of the essay as walk-around, and he reads the contours of the land, his mind, and the urgency of companions who sometimes choose to accompany him on his solo journey with delicacy, generosity and a sharp attentiveness to the possibility of new life, in all its harmonious contradictions. This is lovely writing and musing.”—Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay and Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Review
and#8220;Graceand#8217;s story relates hardships and hilarity in a compelling mix. . . . This is a fine personal portrait of one womanand#8217;s life and a good read. Excellent-quality archival photos, many of Graceand#8217;s own family, enhance the well-documented text.and#8221;and#8212;School Library Journal (starred review)
Review
and#8220;[Pioneer Girl] tells the riveting story of life on the prairie and the determination of the families who settled there.and#8221;and#8212;Kirkus Reviews
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and#8220;A nonfiction parallel to Laura Ingalls Wilder stories, filled with the gritty details of a settlerand#8217;s life and told with a smooth storytelling style.and#8221;and#8212;Horn Book
Review
and#8220;Every year my fifth grade students embark on a journey and#8216;out westand#8217; with Andrea Warrenand#8217;s Pioneer Girl. The bookand#8217;s wonderful details and compelling characters make for a high-interest story as readers learn about the homesteadersand#8217; experiences and what it took to settle the prairie.and#8221;and#8212;Sharon Story, teacher at B.D. Lee Elementary School in Gaffney, South Carolina
Review
and#8220;An excellent addition to units on the westward movement or for fans of pioneer stories.and#8221;and#8212;Booklist
Synopsis
Although finding a way to feel at home in the world is ultimately the lifes work of us all, rarely has the search ranged as far or found as precise and moving an expression as it does in An Inside Passage. Winner of the 2008 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Kurt Caswells narrative chronicles his travels in the rugged mountain forests of Japans Shiretoko National Park, on a vision quest in Death Valley, and to the sacred waters of the Ganges River. Whether contemplating a great blue heron as it rests riverside at the onset of a storm, reflecting on a beloved students untimely death, walking through the Navajo reservation, or receiving the blessing of a Hindu priest, Caswell unerringly finds the moment of truth. His journey also takes us across the landscape of his marriage, both its initial sweetness and its eventual failure. The ensuing inner dislocation echoes a larger estrangement that makes more poignant Caswells quest to find a place he can call home.
Synopsis
Pioneer Girl is the true story of Grace McCance Snyder. In 1885, when Grace was three, she and her family became homesteaders on the windswept prairie of central Nebraska. They settled into a small sod house and hauled their water in barrels. Together they endured violent storms, drought, blizzards, and prairie fires. Despite the hardships and dangers, Grace loved her life on the prairie. Weaving Graceand#8217;s story into the history of Americaand#8217;s heartland, award-winning author Andrea Warren writes not just of one spirited girl but of all the children who homesteaded with their families in the late 1800s, sharing the heartbreaks and joys of pioneer life.
About the Author
Hilary Masters (1928-2015) published novels, short fiction, and nonfiction and his work has been cited in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, and Pushcart Prize anthologies. In 2003 the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave his work its award for literature. He is the author of the novel Elegy for Sam Emerson and the book-length essay, Shadows on a Wall: Juan OGorman and the Mural in Patzcuaro. Best known for his memoir, Last Stands: Notes from Memory, Masters is also the author of How the Indians Buried Their Dead, a collection of short stories.