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Summer at Little Lava

Name: Summer at Little Lava
Author: C. Fergus
ISBN: 9780374525521

by C. Fergus

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Overview

Little Lava is a farm on the west coast of Iceland. No roads lead to it; the way lies across a lagoon flooded twice a day by the tide. A lava field borders the farm. From the house, views give onto mountains, volcanoes, rugged coast, and the pure Icelandic sky. In Summer at Little Lava, Charles Fergus tells how he fixed up an abandoned house on the farm and spent a summer there with his wife and their young son-living day to day in great simplicity, without heat, electricity, running water, or other conveniences. Inspired by Henry Beston's classic book, The Outermost House-about a year Beston spent living in a cottage on Cape Cod-Fergus sought a place at the outer limits of civilization, and on the coast of Iceland he found it. As it happened, there was a sudden death in his family-the cruel, pointless murder of his mother at her home in Pennsylvania; and so, in the twilit open spaces of Iceland, Fergus confronted his grief, in the midst of the country's abundant wildlife and distinctive geology, its history and mythology. The little house on the coast became a refuge as he sought to recover himself and the meaning of his life. "Little Lava was a place where I could pass the days in peace," he tells us, "where I could take the first steps into a future that, I hoped, would not be so dimmed with grief and pain." Summer at Little Lava is a wise and vigilant book. It touches on Iceland and Icelanders, birds and nature, tragedy and personal loss; in strong, resonant prose, it evokes the strange and compelling landscape of Iceland.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Many of the best natural histories tell stories of personal transformation. Fergus had intended for his summer in Iceland to be an opportunity to observe the geology and wildlife of this remote country, but in the aftermath of his mother's murder, it also became a place of solace and reaffirmation. (LJ 6/15/98)

Booknews

A poetic account of a year spent by the author with his wife and son living in a remote farmhouse on the west coast of Iceland. The story ranges over the region's geography, bird and animal life, and cultural ways, as well as his own process of healing as he mourned a traumatic death in the family. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Sue Hubbell

No one can expect a life free of troubles, some of our own making, some, quite literally, misfortune. But it is how we deal with these troubles that reveals who we are. In this beautifully written memoir of a summer in Iceland, Charles Fergus shows himself to be a man of understanding, skill, and wisdom.

Kirkus Reviews

A compelling mix of adventure, travel, natural history, and emotional recovery set against the exotic backdrop of an Icelandic summer. Nine months after his mother was stabbed to death by an intruder, Fergus retreated to Iceland for a healing season with his wife and 8-year-old son in a rudimentary sea cottage they called Little Lava. The solitude and privation (it's reachable only by crossing a lava field and tidal flats, and then only at low tide; there's no running water or electricity) are just what he needs to rebuild his life. Though he comes to terms with his mother's death, the emotional rapprochement takes place offstage, and grief remains a subtext. The real focus is Iceland itself. For Fergus, a sportsman and naturalist "Swamp Screamer: At Large with the Florida Panther", 1996; A" Rough-Shooting Dog: Reflections from Thick and Uncivil Sorts of Places", 1991), the country is both analogue and anodyne to his grief. "In Iceland I reveled in the emptiness of the land, which reflected the emptiness inside me," he writes, but the oddities of a northern summer (which features 24 hours of daylight and weather by turns harsh and idyllic) and the elemental nature of his accommodations help him to begin functioning again: "Any act, of work or leisure, any untroubled thought, was an achievement. helped draw me out of bleak and mindless lethargy." He spends the interminable days hiking the rugged lava field from which the house takes its name, fishing, mountain climbing, sea kayaking and observing the myriad birds that breed on Iceland's coast. Among his sightings, the discovery of a rare pair of nesting sea eagles stands out. And he evocatively describes Iceland's manyvolcanoes, its dramatic sagas and bewitching folklore, and the legendary hospitality of its people. No tears, but plenty of convincing testimony to the redemptive powers of nature.