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Into Woods

Essays by Bill Roorbach

Bill Roorbach

“Bill Roorbach has the remarkable gift of evoking one of the most likeable companions I have ever encountered in literature. In his essays, the reader finds a friend who enlivens the senses and the spirit. Here is a narrator who makes you glad to be alive, giddy to be in his presence, grateful to love friends and family and dogs with generosity and abandon, to show tenderness and thus be saved by strangers.” —Melanie Rae Thon, author of First, Body and Sweet Hearts

Into Woods is an exuberant, profound, and often wonderfully funny account of ten years in the life of its award-winning author, Bill Roorbach. A paean to nature, to love, to family, and to place, Into Woods provides a sequel to Roorbach’s first book, the critically acclaimed and popular Summers with Juliet, which traced Roorbach’s courtship of Juliet Karelsen, ending with their wedding on the water. Into Woods begins with their honeymoon on a wine farm in the Loire Valley of France and closes with the birth of their new daughter and return to their beloved Maine. Thoroughly original, the essays of Into Woods blend journalism, memoir, personal narrative, nature writing, cultural criticism, and rare insight into a narrative of place, a meditation on being and belonging, love and death, wonder and foreboding.

The title essay, “Into Woods,” is a portrait of the writer as a young man; it is also a hymn to work and men. This evocative essay sets the theme for the rest of the collection. “Spirits,” “Shitdiggers, Mudflats, and the Worm Men of Maine,” “Duck Day Afternoon,” “Birthday,” and “Sky Pond” all pay homage to Bill’s life in Maine. “You Have Given This Boy Life,” perhaps the most haunting essay in the collection, describes Bill’s middle-aged preoccupation with death, leading to a strange catalogue of cadavers, but no deliverance from fear. “Vortex,” a lovely reprise of the subjects of Summers with Juliet, is all about fishing on Martha’s Vineyard. “Scioto Blues” is the unforgettable tale of Bill’s walks with his dogs along the trash-infested Scioto River, as it flows through Columbus, Ohio. With his characteristic wit, Bill narrates the funk and glory of a place that somehow manages to keep its dignity despite all of the degradation. Finally, “My Life as a Move” discusses the pervasive American move-for-work phenomenon, cataloguing Bill’s own numerous moves and his and Juliet’s decision to move back to Maine, where they hope they belong.

Bill Roorbach, a 2002 NEA Fellow, is the author of four previous books, including a Flannery O’Connor Award winning collection of stories, BIG BEND, and a novel, THE SMALLEST COLOR. A sixth book, TEMPLE STREAM, will appear in 2003 from Random House imprint Dial Press. Earlier books are SUMMERS WITH JULIET, and WRITING LIFE STORIES. Bill is also the editor of the Oxford anthology THE ART OF TRUTH. Bill’s short work has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, and dozens of other magazines and journals, and has been featured on the NPR program “Selected Shorts.” He has taught in the MFA writing program at Ohio State, as well as at the University of Maine at Farmington, the University of Vermont, and Colby College.

Reviews

“Roorbach’s writing continues to be that freewheeling mixture of nature writing, personal detail, humor, philosophy, and social commentary that makes his personal essays unique.” — Library Journal

“It takes a fairly bold individual to feel that what they have to write about it worth somebody else’s effort to read. It takes even more cockiness to believe somebody wants to read about you and your travails. Bill Roorbach is just such a cocky individual, and his writing backs up the cockiness. He writes with wit, self-depracation, and the wisdom of somebody who has observed for a living for nearly five decades.” —Dan Wickett, online review

“The range of subject matter in this collection is impressive: Fans of nonfiction will surely find at least one essay–and probably many more–that interest, enlighten, and entertain them. Few writers today are capable of bridging the cultural divide that separates those who work with their hands from those who work with their heads; Into Woods does it in style. Into Woods is a trip of discovering one pleasure after another.” — Bangor Daily News

“This collection of 11 lyrical and humorous essays details Roorbach’s search for the right part of country to live in, for meaningful work, for that one place in this increasingly mobile society that indubitably feels like home … pace your reading of the book, the better to savor the exuberance, to give yourself up to the joy.” — Chicago Tribune

“Roorbach knows how to mine personal anecdotes for deeper truths without seeming to preach. And he keeps things engaging as he writes about subjects as diverse as his honeymoon in France and the task of digging for worms. . . . Into Woods offers an entertaining self-portrait of a man who lives his life well, and might provoke readers to review their own priorities.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Writing and working move about one another in this collection in intriguing ways. [T]hese essays tell the story of a man fiercely dedicated to carving his existence out of his own thoughts, yet living that life in cahoots with the natural world. To call Roorbach a modern day Thoreau might be overstatement, but it’s not far from the truth.” —_The Portland Phoenix,_ April 18-25, 2002 (Also ran in Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel—Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

“If you follow Roorbach—as I recommend you do—into one of his joyous, self-mocking, funny, bring-the-dogs-along, old-clothes, scavenger-hunt essays—some of which are also sad, strange and grittily real, you can hardly be disappointed in the company. His appealing, casual tone is part barstool tale, part letter-from-a-friend, part goofy kid in awe of the world’s weird treasures. Whatever pristine or not-so-pristine place Roorbach takes us in his essays, he’s willing to bring along a sack full of humility, honesty, love of life and undaunted joy. His sense of discovery is infectious…. Into Woods easily makes my short list of looking-for-the-good-life books set in Maine, or anywhere for that matter.” — Maine Times

“This collection of 11 lyrical and humorous essays details Roorbach’s search for the right part of the country to live in, for meaningful work, for that one place in this increasingly mobile society that indubitably feels like home. Roorbach’s considerable skill at evoking a sense of place shines through these essays…. Roorbach is a master at capturing and expressing joy. [P]ace your reading of the book, the better to savor the exuberance, to give yourself up to the joy.” — Hartford Courant

“Roorbach’s new book provides uniterrupted reading pleasure. Roorbach has been many things in his working life—cowboy, carpenter, plumber, bartender, teacher—but we should be glad he is also a writer, for he turns out provocative tales and creative essays that actually make us think. There is wit, sadness, humor, inspiration, and gentle warmth in all these essays.” — Waterville Sentinel

“These essays are unified by Roorbach’s passionate interest in his surroundings. One can’t help but want to splash along beside him, sending the ducks skyward and routing out the simple treasures the neighborhood has to offer.” — Rain Taxi

“An earthy and disarmingly honest blend of humor, travelogue, social observation and commentary—and a dash of philosophy and hearty helping of wit, to boot. Into Woods is like a fine, robust wine, best served in sips so its full flavor can be appreciated.” — Dayton Daily News