A new kind of country

by Dorothy Gilman

Dorothy Gilman (author of the widely read Mrs. Pollifax series) decided to leave her New York life (a seeming slow death of the spirit) and move to Nova Scotia (to rediscover herself and personal identity). Her story is the moving story of the renascence she sought and found in a starkly beautiful coastal village. She writes, "I insisted on being. On mattering, at least to myself. Without props. Cold turkey." In the new rhythms of her daily life, chatting with the lobstermen and fishermen and their families, gardening, watching the seasons and their moods, reflecting on herself and her universe, she comes at last to a turning "Something was different in me. Some final mysterious umbilical cord-to the earth and to all things trivial-had been cut." On the rugged seacoast of Nova Scotia, she found a new landscape of the soul. She splendidly recounts her search for inner strength, personal identity, self-esteem, peace, and it is inspirational . . . a new kind of country we all seek.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Canada, Womens, Spirituality

125 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dorothy Edith Gilman started writing when she was 9 and knew early on she was to be a writer. At 11, she competed against 10 to 16-year-olds in a story contest and won first place. She attended Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and briefly the University of Pennsylvania. She planned to write and illustrate children's books. She married Edgar A. Butters Jr, in 1945, this ended in divorce in 1965. Dorothy worked as an art teacher & telephone operator before becoming an author. She wrote children’s stories for more than ten years under the name Dorothy Gilman Butters and then began writing adult novels about Mrs. Pollifax–a retired grandmother who becomes a CIA agent. The Mrs. Pollifax series made Dorothy famous. While her stories nourish people’s thirst for adventure and mystery, Dorothy knew about nourishing the body as well. On her farm in Nova Scotia, she grew medicinal herbs and used this knowledge of herbs in many of her stories, including A Nun in the Closet. She travelled extensively, and used these experiences in her novels as well. Many of Dorothy’s books, feature strong women having adventures around the world. In 2010 Gilman was awarded the annual Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Dorothy spent much of her life in Connecticut, New Mexico, and Maine. She died at age 88 of complications of Alzheimer's disease. She is survived by two sons, Christopher Butters and Jonathan Butters; and two grandchildren.

Series:
* Mrs. Pollifax

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another of my bedtime books that turned out well. In the late 1960's, the author moved to a small village in Nova Scotia once her sons were grown and in college. She lived alone, gardened, wrote, became friendly with her neighbors, and learned to withstand and even love the wild weather in the coastal community. It's the kind of memoir that makes you think, and her philosophy and mine jived in a lot of ways. It's also quite calming to be reminded of life before cell phones and the internet became a way of life.

She wrote all her Mrs. Pollifax books on a typewriter at her kitchen table. Just imagine!

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat memoir, about Gilman herself. Also somewhat philosophy, esp. about a woman living alone. It's also a bit about village life in general, and lobstermen in particular.

Beautifully written. I won't say it's 'like' Michael Perry but I will say I'm experiencing the same kind of joy in, and admiration for, the writing that I do when I read his essays.

Still relevant, 4 decades on, at least to women of a certain age. I know we're making progress, but I was raised, in some ways, much the same as Gilman was... and what a woman does with her life has been less about her identity and more about context, expectations, etc. I hope that our children, young people now, both male and female, don't have to struggle so hard to find grace, satisfaction, joy, and accomplishment in their lives.

"[M]y particular problem has been that when I see "Before" and "After" photographs on the beauty pages of a magazine I usually prefer the "Before" photos."

"I hate waste. If I had to define evil, or sin, or wickedness I would point to waste: waste of talent, waste of potential, waste of freedom, women, men, food, and the earth's resources as well. This includes prisons, poverty, alienation, bad education, pollution, and what happens to people when they prefer shadows to sunlight."

Very short. Give it a try. Or, if you've read other lovely memoirs by mature women about their fresh starst on life, or books with similar themes, tell me the titles, please!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs Pollifax mysteries around the time that my youngest child left home for college. Mrs. Pollifax was a good role model then – a widow with grown children, choosing where life would take her next. Now, at a time when all of my children have left home for good, I have read Dorothy Gilman’s own story, of moving to Nova Scotia from the New York suburbs after her youngest leaves home for college and getting to know herself for perhaps the first time in her life. I can’t really express how much this book touched me. I checked it out of the library, but I will be buying it as soon as I find a copy, and I plan to read it every couple of months. I need her story more than I can say right now.

[Charlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short book by author of the Mrs. Pollinax mystery series about her time living alone in a remote village in Nova Scotia. Book published in the 1970s and very much is the reflections of a suburban American woman dealing with divorce, solitude in a society that had expected women to be coupled, and with her deeper philosophizing about life.

I admire her courage in packing up after her youngest son goes off to college and living her dream of gardening and a simple life in a totally different place. My favorite parts were about the landscape, weather and people of the area — loved her descriptions of the wind there.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had written this review when I finished the book a few months ago. It's very much a snapshot in her time of when she was a no longer married woman in the 70s whose kids have grown up who learns to find herself apart from the others by going to the coast of Nova Scotia and having a go at a garden. Which sounds perhaps cheesy or red-hat-ladies-esque, but which was actually quite lovely in a quiet and honest way.

[Nan Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting introspective from 1978. Dorothy Gilman packed her stressed out self off from a suburb near NYC to a remote village in Nova Scotia, her insightful reflections are worth the read.
Some things in this country have changed in 40/50 years, some things have not and that, too, is interesting. (Wonder how the village in Nova Scotia has fared).
For me the most interesting and valuable aspect of the book is the reminder that living minimally and close to nature is healing to both body and mind.

[Beverly Edberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have given this book about fifty times but it is hard to come by these days. It is the story of a woman who had to find a place in order to find herself. Be care - many have left their boring lives and struck out to claim something new and better. It is a hell of a read.

[Peg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life when I first read it 20 yrs. ago. I now own it and have recently re-read it and it provoked more deep thinking about myself.

[Jinjer Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a revelation. Far different from her other books (which I also love). A memoir I didn't want to end. Something I could never have imagined. I want to read it again!

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Dated but still worthwhile.

[Leslie Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

a short book with a lot of heart. To honor her passing.

[Nanb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book saved my life way back when it came out...a story In itself...years later I wrote ms. Gilman and thanked her...She very graciously replied...

[Gerry Beane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides Ms. Gilman’s uncanny ability to walk the very thin line between beautiful metaphor and cliche as evidenced by such passages as:
“The waves came to me out of the mist, a series of small ones followed by two roaring combers that swept the beach to my feet. As they retreated, all the rocks and stones and pebbles over which they ebbed made a wonderful sound, like applause, nudging each other, moving, clinking, adjusting themselves against the pull of the tide.” Pg 184 - lg type version.
and
“The sunsets grow intense: purest gold turning in minutes to vivid pink, or a sweep of sherbet colors - lemon, orange, raspberry. Fading into a cold twilight, it leaves the earth the color of Concord grapes against a blue, silver-white water; against this the lights of the returning lobster boats glow like gold.” Pg 183, lg type version.
The real value of this tome is the coming to grips with an underlying restlessness that accompanies our modern lives of choices, plenty and yes, obscene commercialism. I doubt she would choose the word obscene herself - her rough edges and brittleness have been polished smooth by a Thoreau-type of existence.
There is something here well beyond going somewhere and living alone. There is a discovery waiting inside each of us - a discovery of peace, self-sufficiency and contentment. It is there for those who are brave enough to peel away the layers of onion that hides our souls. Read - slowly - and discover your true self.

[Diane]

I love Dorothy Gilman's fiction. Mrs. Polifax is a hero of mine. I wanted to gain some insight into the author's life to understand where she was coming from. This is not that kind of a book. Not a biography, but a philosophical memoir. Her discussions about the meaning of life and the nature of solitude sometimes caused me to overthink, a bad habit of mine, and lose sleep as in the middle of the night I pondered my own life.

"It is when the mind has quieted and we have died to those thoughts that were so full of ego and pain that we understand how far away from ourselves we had gone in our suffering, and how imprisoned we'd become. The human mind which has harnessed electricity, discovered the atom, and taken us to the moon, can actually be our enemy until we learn, by understanding its tricks, how easily it can crucify us."


After putting the book down for a few days, I continued, mostly skipping over the philosophy in favor of the charming stories of her time spent in a small coastal village in Nova Scotia. I think I might like to visit there sometime, but not alone and not in the winter.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting quick read about how Gilman moved to Nova Scotia in order to be alone, only to realize that she would discover herself there. Very similar in many ways to Anne Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished re-reading this book and it never ceases to amaze me how stories of personal discovery are timeless. She wrote this quite awhile ago and yet I found it relevant and wise.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some brilliant bits of insight in this little book. Definitely worth reading or re-reading.

[Story · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely and philosophical account of the author's renewal at midlife.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
I was hoping for more about Nova Scotia I guess than what it was... which was sometimes rambling notes on philosophies she was reading at the time and being 1978 there was some way out there notions, man.

[wiwi · Rating 4 out of 5]

so comforting and very cottagecore

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't believe I was surprised to find that Dorothy Gilman was a feminist. Well, duh. Anyone who has met Mrs. Pollifax would be able to figure that out.

I am sometimes disappointed when I read a memoir or biography of someone whose work I admire but not so this time. I think I would have enjoyed knowing her and I will in the future read her books with a slightly different mind set.

Thanks to Diane for bringing my attention to this one.

[Deena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is along the lines of Taber's Stillmeadow Daybook, and is about Ms. Gilman's move to Nova Scotia after a life of city & suburban dwelling. It consists mostly of sketches rather than plot - little depth about the adjustments of the move or the resultant philosophical changes. Some of each are there, but not a lot. Enjoyable, but not revealing enough to be moving. Good, but not as good as it could have been.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir of living alone in the wilds of Nova Scotia in the 1960s when to do so as a woman was a revolutionary act. By the author of the wonderful Mrs Pollifax "cozy" mysteries. Beautiful writing and some interesting insights, but a lot of it is dated, like speculations about the I Ching and ESP (for goodness sakes!).

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Gilman was doing an “Eat Pray Love” sort of experiment decades before Eat Pray Love. This book feels so genuine and real, and still entirely relevant 40 years after its publication. It’s a quiet little book but I don’t know why everyone’s not reading this, why it’s not a classic. Highly recommended.

[Melora · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New Kind of Country by Dorothy Gilman

I’ve always enjoyed memoirs by authors, they’re so vivid. Gilman was a particular favorite author of mine growing up. (Her mysteries feature an irrepressible widow and grandmother in her sixties who is recruited by the CIA.)

This is one of those small memoirs of fascinating thoughts and observations. The book begins well after Gilman’s divorce as her second son goes off to college. She decides to move from Suburban New York to the coast of Nova Scotia.

For someone who went from her parent’s home to living with a husband then having two children, the solitude is quite different. At the same time, there is more of a sense of community in the little village than she is used to.

One night she goes to bed at 10 instead of her customary 11, turning out the lights, and her neighbor calls, concerned she might be ill. “Was she alright? Did she need anything?”

“…there are some pleasing aspects to this after years spent in cities where one could die in June and nobody notice until Christmas.”

It was fascinating to me to read of her experiencing being alone and the things she did living in the country for the first time in her forties, much as I had experienced them on my own in my twenties, before I was married and had a child.

The life of a lobstering village is fascinating, and sad as well. It’s a fruitful and rewarding but dangerous life, as has always been for men making their living on the sea.

She describes the boats going out en masse on the first day of lobster season, and the comings and goings thereafter, along with her first humorous foray to the docks to buy some lobster for herself.

“One felt that if the economy of the entire world collapsed it would make no palpable change in their lives; the affluent years were only a mild surprise in a long succession of government miscalculations. They would continue to chop their own wood, plant their vegetables, bake their own bread.”

The book is split between exploring this new world she is living in, and the inner world she now has the solitude to explore. She ruminates on one of my favorite topics, time. “Yet the mystery is this: that whether we experience time quantitatively or qualitatively, time hasn’t changed at all, it’s we who have changed.”
I highly recommend this book.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author moves to rural Nova Scotia in her mid 50s and begins trying to figure out who she is and who she would like to be. I can identify somewhat with her need to re-examine herself after major life changes – her children have left home; in my case my husband died 6 years ago. Gilman finds needed peace in the very different landscape and life options in Nova Scotia compared to life in New York and New Jersey suburbs.

It was interesting to see the differences in her generation and mine. She was born in 1923 and I in 1943. I had some of the same gender discrimination experiences that Gilman had, but I was definitely on the waning cusp of such things; although there is still plenty of inequity, it is much less blatant. She is more religious than I and also seems to be more introspective. I like that she learned the importance of friends.

This is a little book, and although not totally pertinent for my life, I enjoyed the story of her journey.

[Kaia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me of the book "Gift from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindburgh. Written in the 1970's, it brought back many memories of how women were treated back then, especially divorced women. Most women put their dreams on hold when getting married and having children. A quote from the book: "an occasional peek into that dark closet in which was housed the small dreaming child that had been myself."....

A man even told the author she would make a good wife, except she was divorced with two children that a man would not want to support and take care of. I remember being told that by men!

In almost 40 years women's roles have evolved and societies perceptions. Sometimes we need to step back and realize that today is not only the first day of the rest of our life, but right now is all we really have.

[Sharyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book over 20 years ago. And it had stayed with me. I finally tracked down a copy for a re-read. The most memorable parts of the book deal with Gilman's life in Nova Scotia, whether it be discovering her surroundings, gardening, or the simplification of her life. She sometimes waxes a bit philosophical (the power of pyramids??) and these parts I hadn't remembered at all.

She's a lovely writer. Should I try the Mrs. Pollifax series?

"I learned this, too: that we are each, inside of us, a country with our own mountains and plateaus and chasms and storms and seas of tranquility but like a Third World country we remain largely unexplored, and sometimes even impoverished, for want of a little investment."

[itchy · Rating 5 out of 5]

eponymous-ey sentence:
p21: It would be less than honest to say that I embraced a new lifestyle in a new country without innumerable doubts, anxieties, and setbacks.

period:
p45: It is Nicole who introduces me to the French culture in both East and West Tumbril She is American but her father was born in the village; at eighteen he left it and emigrated to the United States, where he became an architect.

spelling:
p103: They'd arrived only that morning on the ferry to the south of us, fresh from the United States, and they wondered about the wooden boxes piled everywhere, and at the boats drawn up on the beach; they wondered if the beach pond was man-made, and why ther were so many boards piled up high out near the lighthouse.

Quaint.

Oh, to have a simple life!

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fans will likely enjoy this memoir of the late Dorothy Gilman's escape to Nova Scotia when she, like her delightful Mrs. Pollifax of the eponymous spy adventure series, finds herself single and empty-nested. I was hungry for more of Gilman's writing after finishing all of the Mrs. Pollifax novels and was not disappointed to find here that this spunky character was indeed a bit of an alter ego of the author. This book reads more or less like a series of random journal entries in prose form rather than a linear narrative but is full of descriptions of small-town life, nature and numerous quotes and philosophical ponderings personal to Gilman that admiring readers may find interesting or insightful.