Compass Points: How I Lived

In a luminous memoir of a life richly lived, one of America’s finest writers explores the themes that have shaped his life and work: the glories of the natural world, the lure of working for a circus and fighting forest fires, the afflictions of temporary blindness and blocked speech, and the enduring influence of literary friendships, including John Berryman’s, Edward Abbey’s, and his mentor, Archibald MacLeish.

From his childhood in rural Connecticut to some of the earth’s last remaining wildernesses, Hoagland has traveled the world wielding his unusual gift for observation. In Compass Points he delivers an honest and lively accounting of his voyages through two marriages; the New York parties he attended as a precocious young writer; Vermont hippiedom and academia; his many vivid sojourns into Europe, Alaska, British Columbia, the Sudan; and, perhaps most unforgettably, his stint in the “Animal Department” of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus fifty years ago. Leavened with Hoagland’s trademark humor and insight, Compass Points is an entertaining and moving account of the days and nights of one of our most eminent literary voices.

Washington Post - Robert Clark

Compass Points...is one great writer's summing up, at age 69, after a lifetime of close observation, and its author is blunt about what lies ahead for him. But his work is scarcely done. An essay, and the beautiful and profound skein of reflections that constitute this book, resists conclusion, even after it's completed. This is a life's work that, much like the world to which Hoagland has attended with such care and brilliance, bears looking at again and again.

Edward Hoagland has written many works of fiction and nonfiction and been nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the American Book Award. He lives in Bennington, Vermont.