What does it mean to come home?
How does a person, or a family, decide to build a home in our frantic, increasingly mobile society? Is it possible to set down genuine roots in a place far from where you grew up? And how is the concept of “home” intertwined with making, and living, a meaningful life?
Christie Purifoy doesn’t answer all these questions in her memoir, Roots and Sky. But she wrestles with them, in honest, lyrical prose.
Roots and Sky is the story of how Christie, her husband, and their four children have made a home at Maplehurst, an old farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania. That journey, like so many worthwhile ones, has been both more difficult and more beautiful than they imagined.
Like me, Christie is a Texas girl who has traveled far from her childhood home: first to Chicago, then to Florida, then eventually to Maplehurst. I nodded my head as I read her words about travel and movement, about the longing to arrive. She wanted a place where she and her family could set down roots, where they could live into the rhythm of the seasons. At Maplehurst, she found a solid foundation – but quickly realized she had underestimated the work of building it up.
I’m back at Great New Books today talking about how much I loved Roots and Sky. Please join me over there to read the rest of my review.
cakes, tea and dreams 
I recently found her blog and have been wanting to read this. Thanks for the review, and the nudge to go get the book.
Hope you enjoy it! I love her blog, too.
After a decade of wandering in my twenties, I could certainly identify with the desire to put down roots! And I finally have–for the last five years, I’ve been living back in the town where I grew up. 🙂 Now I’m going to go follow the link to read your full review…
Yes, sometimes putting down roots can mean returning to them!
How timely. While I’ve lived in my current city for 20 year and raised my daughters here, empty nest syndrome is having me question my present roots. Do I stay here and wait to see if they come back? Do I uproot their “home” and move closer to my friends or to my girls whose plans are tenuous at best? Giving up my lovely, supportive writing community and starting over is daunting enough to give me serious pause. Thank you for sharing this book, I’m looking forward to reading it.
Timely questions indeed! Hope you enjoy the book.
Fun review! I’ll have to read this one.
It looks like we have a lot in common when it comes to books…check out my page and maybe we can chat books 🙂