PRE-ORDER: Caly recommends... Gaining Ground - Joan Barfoot

Gaining Ground is a masterfully radical and ruminative read about starting over, survival and the beauty found in being alone. Following Abra as she leaves her life for one of rural isolation we join her on a beautiful journey of terror, transformation and self-preservation.  This is a wholly captivating read about freedom, belonging and living off the land. Unearthed by Faber after half a century, this is a outstanding modern classic, thrumming with life, joy and bravery.

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I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra has a perfect-seeming life as a wife and mother: until one day, she walks away, leaving only a note asking her family not to look for her. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing.

Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?Joan Barfoot's Gaining Ground is a both a provocative meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art.