In Good Hands

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.