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Book Cover
Book
Author Pipkin, John, 1947-

Title Woodsburner : a novel / John Pipkin
Edition First edition
Published New York : Nan A. Talese, [2009]
©2009

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'BOOL  810.54 P6657 A6/W  AVAILABLE
Description 365 pages ; 22 cm
Summary "Woodsburner springs from a little-known event in the life of one of America's most iconic figures, Henry David Thoreau. On April 30, 1844, a year before he built his cabin on Walden Pond, Thoreau accidentally started a forest fire that destroyed three hundred acres of the Concord woods - an event that altered the landscape of American thought in a single day."
"Against the background of Thoreau's fire, John Pipkin's ambitious debut penetrates the mind of the young philosopher while also painting a panorama of the young nation at a formative moment. Pipkin's Thoreau is a lost soul, plagued by indecision, resigned to a career designing pencils for his father's factory while dreaming of better things. On the day of the fire, his path will intersect with three very different local citizens, each of whom also harbors a secret dream. Oddmund Hus, a lovable Norwegian farmhand, pines for the wife of his brutal employer. Eliott Calvert, a prosperous bookseller, is also a hilariously inept aspiring playwright. And Caleb Dowdy preaches fire and brimstone to his congregation through an opium haze. Each of their lives, like Thoreau's, is changed forever by the fire."--BOOK JACKET
Subject Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862 -- Fiction.
Biographical fiction, American.
Forest fires -- Fiction.
SUBJECT Walden Pond (Middlesex County, Mass.) http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh98005861 -- Fiction. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh99001562
Genre/Form Fiction.
LC no. 2008033233
ISBN 0385528655 (alk. paper)
9780385528658 (alk. paper)
Other Titles Woods burner