Books

A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod
Low on the Family Tree
John Ciardi: A Biography
Roxana's Children: The Biography of a Nineteenth-Century Vermont Family
Five Roads Taken
John Gilley of Baker's Island
The Making of a Soul
Appalachian Mountain Girl
Totch: A Life in the Everglades
Heaven Is a Beautiful Place: A Memoir of the South Carolina Coast
The Life of Daniel Boone
Peninsula of Lies : A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love
The Tale of the Devil: The Biography of Devil Anse Hatfield
Rebels, Saints, and Sinners: Savannah's Rich History and Colorful Personalities
Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet
Lillian Smith's Memory of a Large Christmas
40 Acres and No Mule
White Girl: A Story Of School Desegregation
Coach's Life : My Forty Years in College Basketball
Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story
Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: The Story of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the Indians
On Any Given Day
Dinner at Miss Lady's: Memories and Recipes from a Southern Childhood
The Hand-Carved Creche and Other Christmas Stories
The Face of Texas: Portraits of Texans

A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod

Average customer rating:

Honest, beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking
No Henry Beston or Henry David Thoreau
An excellent exploration of the soul and its surroundings
Excellent! A superb debut.
Here's a Writer to Watch!

A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod
David Gessner
Manufacturer: University Press of New England
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

New England | Regional U.S. | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

North America | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Travel Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder
Under the Devil's Thumb
The Prophet of Dry Hill: Lessons From a Life in Nature
Sick of Nature
The Way to the Salt Marsh: A John Hay Reader

ASIN: 0874518032

Book Description

Cape Cod, that sandy, wind-swept enchantress, has captivated many writers, among them Henry David Thoreau, whose descriptions of that "wild, rank place" have fired the imaginations of not one but many generations. Among Thoreau's literary progeny is David Gessner, but this book goes far beyond the naturalist's focus on the transcendent beauty of the landscape. Rather, Gessner combines his deeply felt sense of place with observations of the Cape's people and with insights about his family, himself, and his art. In a series of interconnected personal essays, he explores his response to his own recently cured cancer and to the lung cancer that is killing his father. Issues of life and death intertwine with images of a land that Gessner finds curiously healing: "Here thoughts are swamped by the smells, sounds, and sights of place. The gentle hypnotic lapping of waves. A prehistoric cormorant on a slick black rock. The delicate lacework of sea grass roots breaking down through a ledge of sand."

Gessner's introspection during a year spent writing in the family's weathered cottage portrays another struggle, too. For a young writer just beginning his career, such mighty literary forebears as Thoreau can be imposing, if not paralyzing. Yet the process of sorting through and making peace with the memories of his genetic father gives Gessner the power to declare artistic independence from his literary one. Seeing "something tremendously heroic" about his father's determination to perform mundane tasks in the face of imminent death brings Gessner to realize that "our minds have minds of their own. Reality is fabulous, yes, but we also crave something more. Symbol, perhaps. Meaning." In the end, what Cape Cod comes to mean for Gessner is not just freedom from the past, but love and nobility in the face of death.

Customer Reviews:

Honest, beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking.......2001-03-20

I had the pleasure of meeting Gessner at a bookstore he made an appearance at. I bought two of his books, "Wild Rank.." and "Return of the Osprey." I was almost unable to put down "Wild Rank." It was so moving...so touching...so brilliantly honest, I kept the pages open as I did mundane things so I could peek over occassionally and be mesmerized by his essay. The book is a mix of so many things -- there's a little "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in his brutal honesty. Then there's a little Thoreau when he briefs us on what the marshes and the "Suet" mean to him. This book is a must read for anyone who understands or wants to understand that life on life's terms is the only way we can exist -- and one of life's terms is that we take care of the land. Another of those terms is that our parents, for whatever faults they have, shape us in ways we can neither forget nor sometimes identify. David, I'm so glad I met you -- the book has been one of those wonderful surprises in life that change you a little bit when you encounter them. Kudos!

No Henry Beston or Henry David Thoreau.......2000-12-29

I found this book a disappointment because the author allowed his personal issues and problems (e.g. family problems, illness, drug use) to interfere with the picture he was trying to paint. Henry Beston's THE OUTERMOST HOUSE, A YEAR OF LIFE ON THE GREAT BEACH OF CAPE COD, is much more to my liking, because of the beautiful prose and the full concentration of Mr. Beston on the topic at hand (i.e. the Cape, its history, its beauty, its wildness). I find it incongruous for this author, David Gessner, to make the effort to get in touch with nature by living out in the wilds by the ocean, and then to take the unnatural step of using drugs while doing so. It offends my senses almost as much as do the actions of people who play boomboxes at the beach while supposedly enjoying nature. I guess I like my nature natural and without the distractions of these other modern day intrusions. And I like my information and insights gleaned from my readings to be based on reality not drug induced fantasy. These personal issues (which in another context, might have been appropriately raised and interesting) seemed only to be undesired distractions in this context.

An excellent exploration of the soul and its surroundings.......1999-04-29

Mr. Gessner has created a powerful memoir of his childhood on Cape Cod, the loss of his father and his love for the harsh Cape environment that is emblematic of personal struggles Gessner has faced and, with humor and intelligence, ultimately overcome. A thoughtful and thought-provoking work from a promising young author.

Excellent! A superb debut........1999-02-22

An inspiring narrative about a young man who survives cancer, only to watch his father be taken by the same disease. In the tradition of Beston and Thoreau, Gessner brings the Cape to life in all its seasons. But this book should not be tied to one place: readers from all over the globe will identify with Gessner, his family, and his love of home. A Wild, Rank Place is a very special book. You'll be glad you read it.

Here's a Writer to Watch!.......1999-02-21

David Gessner isn't your typical nature writer. Not simply content to give lip service to "birds and trees," Gessner enters the landscape as an animal, swilling and raging and chortling his way across Cape Cod with glee and guts. He isn't afraid to tackle tough material either: he receives news of his father's malignant carcinoma after, ironically, beating his own cancer successfully. In the face of such significant life issues, Gessner worries about place---his own as son and native to Cape Cod, and the strength of his writing voice in the shadow of his real and literary fathers. This book does for fathers and sons what Terry Tempest William's Refuge did for mothers and daughters. I found Gessner to be charmingly self-absorbed: he allows the reader to view him ("the thing itself") and his landscape, warts and all. And just when some might dismiss him as another Abbey-wanabee who goes about the motions of outrage for outrage's sake, Gessner shows his talent and unique writing strength: he writes movingly and memorably about his own father's death in a stunning journal section simply titled, June. The last sections of the book are a Hymn---for Gessner's father, for the place of his birth, for life. In the end, Gessner shows how grace and real beauty rise from fiercely loving ALL the parts of the world, even the ones which pain us most.

Average customer rating:

A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod
David Gessner
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MU8YW4

Books:

Books