Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild

(Paperback)

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"If Tom Montgomery Fate has not found the secret formula for the deliberate, balanced life, he is a chief disciple of the search."-Chicago Tribune Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the sensibility-serious yet irreverent-that suffuses Cabin Fever, as the author seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher's insights to a busy modern life. Tom Montgomery Fate lives in a Chicago suburb, where he is a husband, father, professor, and active member of his community. He also lives in a cabin built with the help of friends in the Michigan woods, where he walks by the river, chops wood, and reads Thoreau by candlelight. Fate seeks a more attentive, deliberate way of seeing the world and our place in it, not only in the woods but also in the context of our relationships and society. In his search for "a more deliberate life" amid a high-tech, material world, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision- the possibility of enough in a culture of more.

Reviews

Recommended by USA Today

I grew fond fast of this book, and its hard not to. Fate is a man who brings coyotes and cougars to the page in a thoughtful, beautiful prose thats readable, lyrical, and begs the reader to slow down and take their time. The book is a wide, deep river, best observed with a cup of coffee as the suns coming up over the ridge and the nights crickets have given way to the scratching and calls of the mornings towhees.Terrain.org

Tom Montgomery Fates charming volume is about his search for meaning in the suburbs, a search that takes him to the woods of Michigan where he builds his own cabinWhat makes Cabin Fever such good reading is that the author doesnt try to be a modern-day ThoreauThe magic of Cabin Fever is the authors willingness to move back and forth between the two worlds of hectic suburbs and the more isolated nature-soaked cabin.Christian Century

Cabin Fever is a quietly stunning book, organized around the four seasons, much as Walden is structuredHis elegant and rhythmic prose is about embodiment and the fight we must make to swim against the current that seeks to sweep us away from such bold and incarnational livingNot all books invite us to enter their lives in so intimate a fashion, to join our own patterns of living with theirs. But Fates admission that he is a slow and bungling pilgrim serves as an admonition and a blessing to his readers to go and live, even if imperfectly, this one blessed life weve been given.Brevity

May touch a chord in a desperate urban-dweller's heart may also show that Mother Earth's bosom is not always welcoming to mere humans. Wall Street Journal

His account of a quest for a more deliberate life, inspired by a re-reading of Thoreaus Walden several years ago, is refreshingly modest but also aching with yearning for the Home we all desire.Christianity Today

His frank, poignant, and funny essays grapple with the quandaries inherent in the effort to live a balanced life. Fates clarion musings on place, time, family, social responsibility, the wild, and the civilized are thoughtful and affecting in their revelations of how complex and precious life is. Donna Seaman,Booklist, starred review, May 1, 2011

"Never snide or condescending, Fate blends the significant milestones of marriage and family in a high-tech BlackBerry society with the joys and shortcomings of being mindful in both cultures." Publishers Weekly

The tone of Fates writing is serious and thoughtful, yet laced with some humor (particularly the chapter in which he imagines a gay relationship between two male cardinals) Fate is introspective and writes in a lyrical manner, offering much food for thought in this multi-layered, 'how to live memoir.' Hilary Daninhirsch, Foreword Reviews

This quietly marvelous book is really a mystery novel at heart. The mystery is How to live Tom Montgomery Fate, a self-described slow and bumbling pilgrim, sets out to answer this question, meandering, with Thoreau as his companion, toward the truth--or more accurately, the truths. Henry David Thoreau has never been more relevant than he is today, and what a pleasure to follow the two of them sleuthing toward something solid in these fickle and shifting times.David Gessner, author of Soaring with Fidel and The Tarball Chronicles

With Thoreau as his guide, Tom Montgomery Fate explores a wild territory where Henry himself never dared to venture: marriage, parenthood, and the suburban backyard. Along the way, he shows us how to embrace the challenges of our world, and our daily lives, with new grace, restoring us to the place where we should all be living: in gratitude and wonder. A profound and beautiful book.John T. Price, author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

In Cabin Fever, Tom Montgomery Fate has written a book as wise as it is charming. Fate, in his deeply informed dialogue with Thoreau, never dodges the many realities of American middle-class existence that might lead to a life of quiet desperation. Still, Cabin Fever is, finally, not a book about avoiding desperation but achieving balance.Stuart Dybek, author of The Coast of Chicago

Tom Montgomery Fate resonates with Thoreau without needing to be Thoreau. His Cabin Fever echoes Walden without pretense. It is a book for our time by a writer of our time. Fate proves himself against his transcendental literary ancestor and, in the process, gives us a contemporary book of thought, hope, and promise. Cabin Fever is an antidote to the ills of the day.Jeffrey S. Cramer, editor of Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition and curator of the Thoreau Institute

Quiet, beautifully written reflections on nature and the mindful life, laced with the thoughts and writings of Thoreau. Kirkus

Author Bio

Tom Montgomery Fateis the author of four books, including the collection of essaysBeyond the White Noiseand the spiritual memoirSteady and Trembling.His essays have appeared in theChicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Orion, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, Christian Century,and many other publications, and they often air on NPR'sLiving On Earthand Chicago Public Radio. He is a professor of English at College of DuPage in Illinois, where he lives with his family. His cabin is in southwest Michigan.