Sawbill: A Search for Place

by Jennifer Case

In Sawbill Jennifer Case watches her family suddenly exchange their rooted existence for a series of relocations that take them across the United States. In response Case struggles to "live in place" without a geographical home, a struggle that leads her to search for grounding in the now-dismantled fishing resort her grandparents ran in northeastern Minnesota. By chronicling her migratory adulthood alongside the similarly unpredictable history of Sawbill Lodge, this memoir offers a resonant meditation on home, family, environment, and the human desire for place in the inherently mobile twenty-first century.

264 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2018

Reviews

[Beth Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book doesn't really do it justice. It's much more than a search for place. It's a longing for belonging, for a connection with land and community and a heartbreaking nostalgia for an idyllic childhood spent hiking and camping in the far reaches of northern Minnesota. It's so well-written, it carried me along spellbound, so I could hardly put it down. As a reader, you want the author to find what she's looking for and in the end, although it was maybe not the ending you were expecting, you are not disappointed because it does come to a satisfying conclusion.

If you like memoir, or place-based writing, or just a well-told tale, I recommend this book.

***Disclaimer:*** I am acquainted with the author, but consider this a fair and honest review.

[Guy Choate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate any book that seems to pull directly from a writer’s journal, and I’m certain this one does. We are learning things at the same time the writer is. Jennifer Case is obviously committed to searching for and presenting the truth—and she succeeds. Above all else, this is a book about nostalgia and how we sometimes dive into memories and the reality behind them in order to find more of what we loved, but then we discover that perhaps it’s simply the passing of time that makes those memories so great. And that’s heartbreaking.