COMING SOON
A FIELD OF MY OWN: A Memoir of Place
ISBN: 979-8-9918639-0-2
Written, Photographed and Designed by Cynthia McVay
236 pp
Living in a Place Press
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DESCRIPTION
Pull on your boots and take a walk with Cynthia McVay and her dogs— consummate hosts and guides, in a riveting landscape rife with adventure and discovery. In A Field of My Own: A Memoir of Place, lifelong creative and environmentalist McVay chronicles her intimate, two-decade relationship with a flagging orchard in the Hudson Valley. As a single working mother, she was looking for a weekend escape from New York City, a piece of green, a place to call her own. One blustery winter day, she falls in love with a meadow and her life is forever altered. She renovates the modest cottage, builds a pondish-pool, creates pollinating, native gardens from orphans and strays, learns to forage and runs the tractor. A decade in, as architect and general contractor, she moves an enormous 180-year-old hand-hewn Amish barn to the property to make her sustainable home. Snarky contractors, a tippling partner, puzzling neighbors, concerning caretakers, black rat snakes and coyote chases are minor setbacks; each day brings joy and serenity. This engaging memoir of place is generous and honest, packed with useful know-how and humor. McVay’s writing is vibrant and her photos evocative.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
“For all of us who have fallen in love with the Hudson Valley,
and for those yet to fall under its thrall, this book is essential reading.”
—GARY SHTEYNGART, New York Times bestselling author, Our Country Friends
“In the spirit of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, A Field of My Own gives readers an intimate view
of the mesmerizing Hudson Valley and adventures of country living with a keen eye and great respect
for its natural environs. McVay finds humor and story . . . everywhere.”
—JON BOWERMASTER, award-winning author and filmmaker
“In this resplendent memoir, Cynthia McVay takes us on an enchanting, lavishly-illustrated journey
in sumptuous prose as she turns her Hudson Valley farm and home into a work of art.
Grab a comfy chair and a cup of tea and spend an afternoon in this delightful world where nature and beauty abound.”
—MARY RASENBERGER, Authors’ advocate and Hudson Valley resident
“A Field of My Own revels in stewarding a landscape neither fully domesticated nor fully wild. But it is in the tale of the barn
that McVay really earns her stripes for this reader. At its heart, this is a lovingly written memoir
of a woman who comes to embrace the intimate fact that her true love and life partner is not another human being
but her land, which she possesses — even as it possesses her.”
—EAMES DEMETRIOS, author of An Eames Primer and creator of Kcymaerxthaere