In this haunting, elegantly written memoir, W. S. Merwin recalls in utterly unsentimental prose his youth, growing up in a repressed Presbyterian household in the small river towns of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The complex portrait that emerges of a family without language or history, transforms the story of their isolated lives into the development of a writer's conscience and a warning about the fate of a middle class eager to obliterate origins.
"This book is superbly written, offering deep glimpses into the complexities and mysteries of family bonds, with just that distancing from people and events necessary for artistic control."--Edmund Fuller, "Wall Street Journal"
- ISBN10 068911284X
- ISBN13 9780689112843
- Publish Date 1 October 1983 (first published 1 January 1982)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 March 2021
- Imprint Holiday House
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English