In Sawbill Jennifer Case watches her family suddenly exchange their rooted existence for a series of relocations that take them across the United States. In response Case struggles to "live in place" without a geographical home, a struggle that leads her to search for grounding in the now-dismantled fishing resort her grandparents ran in northeastern Minnesota. By chronicling her migratory adulthood alongside the similarly unpredictable history of Sawbill Lodge, this memoir offers a resonant meditation on home, family, environment, and the human desire for place in the inherently mobile twenty-first century.
A beautifully written book, well organized and lyrical.'--Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards
Jennifer Case embarks on a personal journey, rediscovering the vast beauty of an almost pristine landscape as well as a complicated inner landscape as she surveys the boundaries of family bonds, love of the land, and our inexplicable, inextricable connections to place.
Jennifer Case is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas and the assistant nonfiction editor at Terrain.org.
Acknowledgments
Sawbill
Building Sawbill
The Boundary Waters
Biking Behind Dad
Sawbill Map
Another Swiss Family Robinson
Homemaking
The Deckled Edge
Piecing
Movement
E-mail from Grandma
St. Croix
Aloneness
E-mail from Lori
Gardening with Ruth
Research
Appalachian Trail
Return to Minnesota
Solbakken
Revisiting Sawbill
Cook County Historical Society
Interview with Dad
Interview with Mary Alice
Unidentifiable Bird
Interims
