In Good Hands

Book excerpt: In 1836, Henry Lester moved his family from the Vermont hills to better land on the valley floor north of Rutland, beginning a saga six generations on a farm, which this book portrays and explores with an affectionate but critical eye. What gives the book its distinctive charm is its vivid evocation of a way of life: the beloved grandmother keeping house both as a shelter and as a temple of the spirit; the uncles sowing and harvesting, raising and slaughtering; the author, as a small boy, working with the men, fishing and hunting, and later, reflecting on the issues of pleasure and work, freedom and community.