The salt house: a summer on the dunes of Cape CodThe Salt House is a beautifully observed and written memoir of a long summer's stay on the back shore of Cape Cod. Each chapter is like a prose poem, shedding increasing light on the challenge of finding "home" without the illusion of permanence, a quest based not on ownership but on affinity and familiarity with an area and its people. Cynthia Huntington expands her theme through images of the landscape, the shack, the new marriage.The shack, named "Euphoria, " is built as a house set on stilts above the sand, to take the wind under it. Only a partial shelter, it is inhabited for only one season a year, yet it endures. The outer cape has the feel of a place for migrants and drifters -- for birds and other wildlife, and for people such as artists, fishermen, and coast guardsmen. A place where "year-round" often means several addresses. Similarly, her narrative describes improvised, fragile beginnings: a new marriage, learning to be at home in the world, becoming intimate with the natural world, without the necessity of settling down. The Salt House shares a world that is less natural history or memoir than it is neighborhood exploration -- the process of learning a place and becoming native to it. |
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The salt house: a summer on the dunes of Cape Cod
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictWhere else but at the beach do people lie down right on the earth? This is just one of poet Huntington's insights in a nature journal that explores the three summers she and her husband spent some ten ... Read full review
Review: The Salt House
User Review - Sheila - GoodreadsBeautifully written account of a writer and artist who spent three summers in a P-town dune shack. However, if reading several pages about the daily habits of the piping plovers sounds dull, then this is not for you. It reminded me of "Walden". Lots of observations on nature. Read full review
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afternoon back shore bayberry beach beach grass beach roses Bert birds blue bluefish body breath bright bunk Cape Cod circle climb clouds cold crying Cynthia Huntington dark deep door dream dunes earth edge empty Euphoria everything eyes feel feet fish float gaze glinting grain grass green gulls Hazel head hill horizon horned owl inside jeep Jim Bowen leaning leaves light live look marsh hawk Milky Way spread moon morning moving nest night ocean offshore past path pine piping plover pitch pines Provincetown pulled Race Point rain rise rose salt sand sand eels sanderlings seems shack shadow side skin sleep slowly smell soft space stand staring stars summer surface terns Thalassa tide town trail tree tree swallows turn voice walk warm watch waves wind window wings woods
Bibliographic information
| Title | The salt house: a summer on the dunes of Cape Cod |
| Author | Cynthia Huntington |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | University Press of New England, 1999 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Mar 10, 2008 |
| Length | 183 pages |
| Subjects | › › › Biography & Autobiography / Literary Biography & Autobiography / Women Cape Cod (Mass.) Cottages Natural history Natural history/ Massachusetts/ Cape Cod Poetry / General Poets, American Poets, American/ 20th century/ Biography Sand dunes Sand dunes/ Massachusetts/ Cape Cod Summer Travel / United States / Northeast / New England Women poets, American |
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