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(More customer reviews)When was the last time you read a memoir that begins with an angry raccoon perched on the author's head? That's the opening scene of Wade Rouse's new book and one of many, both hilarious and wise, that make this a memorable story about living your dreams and in the process discovering a new life.
Despite the inspiration supplied by his grandmother's passion for Henry David Thoreau's WALDEN, Wade Rouse is an unlikely heir to the mantle of that nature-loving philosopher. Although he grew up in the Ozarks, the flamboyantly gay Rouse confesses that he had transformed himself "from a country rube into a sophisticated city boy, a Starbucks-swilling, pashmina-wearing, catch-a-Parker-Posey-independent-movie kind of guy." Frustrated in his day job as a public relations director at a St. Louis prep school, he yearns to become a full-time writer. So in 2005, he persuades his salesman partner Gary to abandon urban life for a small house they christen "Turkey Run" on three and one-half acres of land just outside the small town of Saugatuck, Michigan, a resort town and burgeoning artist community about a mile from Lake Michigan. Wade and Gary soon discover the chasm that separates life in the tourist season and the reality of a Michigan winter, and the fun begins.
Before embarking on his adventure, Rouse grabs a pile of coffeehouse napkins and compiles a list of "new life goals, one per napkin, that would match the tenets and principles that Thoreau set forth in WALDEN." The book's succeeding chapters end with a scorecard in which he judges his success by assigning a point to "Wade's Walden" or "Modern Society." Rouse's goals range from the mundane ("learn to love the snow") to the practical ("live off the land" and "nurture our country critters") to the profound ("rediscover religion" and "redefine the meaning of life and my relationship with Gary"). What gives his memoir its real zest are the sparks that fly when his wish to "eschew the latest entertainment and fashion for simpler pursuits" meets stiff resistance as he tries to "let go of my city cynicism."
For someone who is used to hanging out at Kenneth Cole and Banana Republic and is a devoted fan of "I Love Lucy" ("What would Lucy do?" is a frequent mantra) and Erma Bombeck, it's an understatement to describe Rouse's immersion into rural life as a culture shock. It isn't long before he has had to shed his normal haunts to frequent the local feed store on Saturday morning ("This is like replacing meth with Bubble Yum") or attend a potluck church supper that inspires a poignant recollection of the painful week he spent at church camp as a teenager. In one unsparing, often riotously funny self-portrait after another, Rouse tells of his grim battle with the relentless Michigan snow, his encounters with the local wildlife (the aforementioned raccoon gets a curtain call later in the book), his stab at ice fishing, and his attempt with Gary to plant a vegetable garden, among other adventures.
Like his predecessor Thoreau, Rouse is a keen, if initially reluctant, observer of natural life. He is able to write about it both lyrically ("Sometimes the fog rolls off the lake, heavy and thick, like a moving curtain, and the morning simply becomes stalled, the sunlight choked in darkness.") and with humor ("Spring arrives one day in Michigan like a forgotten castaway who manages to row his way onto the beach using two coconuts."). He is equally perceptive in the stories he tells of his neighbors, from the artists on whose farm he and Gary pick blueberries to the migrant workers who live, and eventually abandon, the decrepit single-wide trailer next door.
It's evident early in Wade Rouse's memoir that he's able to play a scene for laughs every bit as skillfully as David Sedaris, with whose work this book inevitably will be compared. Rouse's journey isn't an easy one, and for every step forward it seems he suffers a corresponding pratfall along the way. And yet, for all its biting wit, there's a rich, life-affirming message worthy of Thoreau at this story's core: "I have now learned that there is never a wrong time to do something meaningful and courageous in life," Rouse writes, "something that makes you deeply and achingly happy. There is only a right time: a moment to hold your breath, close your eyes and jump."
--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
Click Here to see more reviews about: At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life
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