Gaining Ground - by Joan Barfoot (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Unearthed after half a century, this radical portrait of a woman who leaves her family to live alone in a woodland cabin will pierce the heart of anybody who has ever wanted to escape.

I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra is a wife and mother living a suburban dream--until one day, she walks away. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?

Gaining Ground, published as Abra in North America, is a both a radical meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape--who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.

"One of those rare books which put you in touch with yourself as deftly and as deeply as The Bell Jar." --Nell Dunn, author of The Muse

Review Quotes

"Thousands of women will recognise a sister." - Good Housekeeping

"One of those rare books which put you in touch with yourself as deftly and as deeply as The Bell Jar." - Nell Dunn

"The sheer brilliance of Barfoot's writing is enough to take your breath away. She is among the best prose stylists of her generation." - A Reader's Guide to the Canadian Novel

About the Author

Joan Barfoot (born 1946) is the author of eleven novels. Her books, which reviewers have celebrated as "harrowing and hilarious" and "gloriously subversive", have been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A recipient of the Marian Engel Award, she has also been a journalist during much of her career. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada.