The Road to Appledore
Or How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place
-
- £8.99
-
- £8.99
Publisher Description
Acclaimed author Tom Wayman’s account of his shift from urban to rural.
The recent pandemic accelerated an existing trend among urban Canadians to move to the country. Yet to quote from a 2022 Globe and Mail article, “People from cities don’t always realize what they’re getting into.”
For anyone setting out in that direction, or dreaming of doing so, Tom Wayman’s The Road to Appledore, or How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place is rewarding reading. The book follows Wayman from Vancouver to southeastern BC’s Slocan Valley, deep in the Selkirk Mountains, and presents with his characteristic humor and philosophical insight his ensuing major shifts of perspective and knowledge. Mishaps, misadventures and moments of delight and wonder abound in Wayman’s prose reflections on his decades of living immersed in nature and the contemporary rural: from having to deal with a bear cub in his kitchen to engaging in a vigilante action to protect a community water system to the quiet satisfaction of growing his own food and flowers.
Wayman depicts the rural southwest of Canada in intimate detail and a sense of wonder; readers will be transported alongside him.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Canadian poet Wayman (If You're Not Free at Work, Where Are You Free?) reflects on his move from the city to the country in this evocative memoir. After fumbling through couples therapy with his longtime partner, Bea, in the late 1980s, Wayman embarked on a trial separation that took him out of Vancouver and into the small, rural community of Winlaw, in British Columbia's Slocan Valley. The mishaps began immediately—his transmission gave out while transporting his belongings out of Vancouver—but over time, Wayman adjusted to a slower speed of life and regular animal intrusions (including a young bear bursting into his kitchen in search of food). In sparkling prose ("Robins bobbed along the grass trying their luck for worms, while above, a raven traveled wing-stroke by wing-stroke"), Wayman recalls how the distance from urban living gave him clarity on his relationship with Bea and got him back in touch with the "pure enjoyment of just being alive." For Wayman, the experience was so restorative that he never left—but even contented city dwellers will take pleasure from this enchanting account.
