Coming out of the woods

About this book

"Coming Out of the Woods is a memoir that challenges our Thoreauvian romance with nature, and offers the conclusion that we have no choice but to manage the wild forces of nature, that in civilization lies the preservation of the wildness that we cherish.". "The dream that drove Wallace Kaufman deep into the woods of piedmont North Carolina began while he was growing up in an apartment block in Queens. Like Thoreau in the 1840s Kaufman went to live in the woods, but he stayed ten times longer than Thoreau, and reached quite opposite conclusions about the powers of nature and humanity. To achieve his dream Kaufman became a "land developer" bringing a zany cast of 1970s characters onto 360 acres of forested land in conservative rural Carolina, then built his own cabin in the most remote part of that land.". "Kaufman describes his twenty-five years in the Carolina woods, from his human neighbors and their attempts at living with nature, to the wild animals who often prefer his house and garden to the forest around them, to the subtle but ample marks and scars left on the land by the people who lived in the forest thousands of years before him. His love of nature and solitude never wavers as he finds that survival in a wild place is not a love feast but a tough negotiation with plants, animals, climate, and the land itself. The harmony he seeks with old growth trees, deer, bats, flying squirrels, and hurricanes, becomes a harmony he must make."--BOOK JACKET.