At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life

by Wade Rouse

Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision of his life or the worst mistake since a botched Ogilvy home perm: uproot his life and try, as Thoreau did some 160 years earlier, “to survive…living a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions.”

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream is what happens when a self-obsessed gay man with a penchant for bronzer and he-capri’s leaves the lattes behind and wanders into the wild to dwell in a knotty-pine cottage and live up to the tenets set forth in Walden. Battling bloodthirsty critters, enduring nosy neighbors with night-vision goggles, and inhaling the distinct whiff of boredom no firewood-scented Henri Bendel candle can hide, Rouse’s spirit, sanity, relationships, and Kenneth Cole pointy-toe boots are sorely tested. But he ultimately discovers something in the woods outside Saugatuck, Michigan, that he always dreamed of but never thought he’d find—happiness and a home.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Humor, Book Club, LGBT, Biography, Nature

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2009

About the author

WADE ROUSE is the critically acclaimed author ofthe memoirs America’s Boy, Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler, and At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream and editor of the upcoming humorous dog anthology I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship!He is a humor columnist for Metrosource magazine. Rouse lives outside Saugatuck, Michigan, with his partner, Gary, and their mutts, Marge and Mabel.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Stephany Wilkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't decide which rating to give this book (three or four stars?), but I had to go with four because it made me laugh out loud so many times (much to the chagrin of the husband falling asleep beside me).

I have a problem with books in that I desire something besides the usually depressing nonfiction (politics, industrial food, proliferation of toxins, social injustice, general environmental devastation) and fiction (Russian novelists, early American women writers, black literature, social protest literature) I read, but I can't seem to find anything funny, or at least distracting, AND intelligent. Audrey Niffenegger has solved this problem, and now so has Wade Rouse.

Wade is a keen observer who seems to share my general dislike of others, and better yet, thinks to write them down and share them with the rest of us. Praise be, Wade! And he turns this sharp criticism as much as he does outward, which makes for a truly enjoyable memoir. And oh, can he turn a phrase. I tried to read some of them to my husband or whomever happened to be nearby, but was laughing too hard to really get them out in an understandable way.

This book is also set outside of Saugatuck-Douglas, MI, which means that I, a native Michigander familiar with the area, can attest to the veracity and authenticity of Rouse's observations: Oh they are SO dead on!

Enjoy this very, very funny, intelligently written book. It has taught me that laughing out loud does not mean you're slumming it.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe it or not, Wade was once a rural boy. But he was a GAY rural boy and got tired of being teased, picked on and harassed…or simply not having a place that served a decent latte. So he ran to the city, got himself a boyfriend and all the Starbucks coffee he could drink.

Now, years later, he feels less than fulfilled. He’s busy but he’s not happy. He loves the city but he can’t stand his job. So he’s going to be like Thoreau and simplify his needs. He wants peace and quiet to think and figure out where he’s going with his life. He’s going to find space and time to write his Great American Novel.

What he got was the worst snowstorm in recent history, a cottage only a few miles away from a very ripe-smelling horse farm, a flock of attention-hogging turkeys and a bunch of gun-toting hunters bent on killing said turkeys. Suddenly he’s remembering why he left the country in the first place.

Humorous, wry and self deprecating, Mr. Rouse shows why even great ideas can have calamitous effects…and that’s when you really have to get out of the car, put your shoulder to the wheel and push on, no matter what. Just beware of angry raccoons.

[Jeanneb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. He is certainly no David Sedaris, no matter how hard he tries. And, if it's a true self-narrative, he is not that likeable.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now look. I don't care how much your grandma liked Thoreau or how absurdly citified you are, Saugatuck ( http://www.saugatuck.com/index.asp ) is not the wilderness. And Saugatuck aside, the characterization of Michigan got my back up a little bit, since he basically used it as a casual synonym for "howling redneck wasteland/Siberia." We are not without our rednecks but I'd say, first, that Michigan is about a demographically varied a state as there is, and, second, that our howling wilderness is anyway not equivalent to our resort coast. You're looking for the UP, bucko. i really had no idea I was so little-sibling defensive about my home state.

Also, in defense of my private reaction to the author, I think I'd find ANYONE that materialistic, gender-compliant, and girly off-putting, regardless of gender or sexual preference. That said, I apologize to Mr. Rouse on Michigan's behalf for the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment and applaud him for doing his part to encourage all the reasonable intelligent gay people not to leave en masse.

[Amy]

Read any other 1 or 2 star review and they've got it covered. The only thing I can add is that if you think St. Louis is some hustling and bustling big city, maybe you should try Chicago or New York. I've been to downtown St. Louis and in surrounding neighborhoods and felt like I was in a ghost town at times. I don't really see how much of a change it would be to go from St. Louis to Sagatauk, Mi. At least not the world shattering change he acts that it was.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had such high hopes because this book started out so funny! The more I read the more uncomfortable I became because the author seems to be mean-spirited, judgmental, and SO full of himself. Skip this one.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious!

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud humor as a guy couple decides to make their favorite resort town their permanent home. Wade has always wanted to be a full-time writer and using Emerson's On Waldon Pond he decides to give country living a try.

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Misadventures" of a man who hits 40 with a resounding thud and resolves to uproot his life, quit his job and leave the city, cable, culture and consumerism behind in order to move to a knotty-pine cottage in the middle of the Michigan woods to recreate a modern-day Walden. The memoir chronicles ultimate urbanite Wade and his partner, Gary, as they embrace 10 Life Lessons -- sort of a City/Country Smackdown -- based on trying to achieve a simpler life but also rooted in the tenets of Walden (think "Give Up Fashion and Entertainment for Simpler Pursuits," such as living w/o cable and magazines, a nearly impossible task for a man who considers Kenneth Cole to be on par with Gandhi for his contributions to the world, and Kathy Griffin to be his spiritual leader; think "live off the land," although his fave foods are Kashi and Morningstar Burgers; think "embrace your neighbors," though many seem to have night-vision goggles; think "embrace the Pixar-cute country critters, though Wade is attacked by a raccoon.) Yes, Wade buys waders, Wade ice-fishes, and survives blizzards and country stores and country karaoke with two tipsy trollops, but he also rediscovers -- as Thoreau did -- his spirituality, as well as happiness and a home in the last place he thought he'd ever find those things. I laughed out loud on nearly every page, but also was challenged to think about where I wanted my life to head in these tough times. It’s about taking risks, embracing life, getting lost in the woods, and finding yourself in the most unexpected of places. Wade reminds me of a gay Erma Bombeck. While not as well written as ‘The Bucolic Plague’ and it touches on many of the same themes, it is entertaining. What passes for typical gay wit is really kind of watered down Tim

[Laurie Dickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not really a four star book, but I really enjoyed it. Two gay men move from big city life to the wilds of Michigan. You can imagine. It really is pretty funny. I had many lol moments. The author is adorable. Good writing. He writes sort of like my good friend Kat Spitzer!

[Cheryl Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light breezy read where a man leaves the city for the 'wilds' of Michigan.

Okay at first this was a lot of fun. Wade, our author/Walden wannabe is a bit snarky and as someone who is a bit herself I totally get that. And I fully approve of someone trying to become a writer. I would have given it 4 stars except for one major problem.

The issue I had was how Michigan was portrayed. Saugatuck, a very cute, modern resort town is hardly country-bumpkin land and while Michigan does have some rural areas like any other state most of it is quite populated. Still I was able to set aside for the sake of creativity until I read this:



WAIT. WHAT?

I've lived here my entire life and NO ONE here has ever talked that way. It's a joke that some in the upper peninsula do (which is nowhere near Saugatuck) but even then it's not true, having spent countless summers up there. I know some liberties were taken for the sake of the book but man, are we Fargo? Are we the Outback? Are we rural Mississippi? Michigan is none of these. Did you ever really even live here?

Okay, rant over. Apart from some chapter choppiness and some narrative issues (many small chapters devoted to gardening for example) the book is good and I would read something else by the author because he's a funny storyteller and a decent writer. Also Gary, his partner is a sweetheart and I hope they're still together.

Worth a read and I'm not sorry I picked it up.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was difficult for me to get past the whining and complaining about every little difficulty Wade experienced when he moved to a rural place in Michigan. Also I had difficulty with the crude expletives , losing count of the F-bombs and other references to sexual activity and bathroom functions. I came to this book because of the inspirations he claimed to get from Henry David Thoreau. Well, references to Thoreau were plenty, but chosen only because they referred to his particular situation. I hope his other books are better than this one.

[Kate]

silly fun

[Bill reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wade Rouse had a Thoreau like aspiration to live in the wilderness to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life. An encounter with an angry raccoon almost changed his mind. The furry little bandit was interrupted eating dinner from a garbage can when it attached its’ surprisingly strong claws onto Wade’s scalp. A breath mint spray into Rocky’s (Beatles) eyes saved our narrator from further harm. Wade’s grandmother had introduced him to Thoreau’s Walden. Rouse and his partner Gary decided to make their home in a cabin in an isolated part of Michigan. Gary retained a sales job but Wade quit his nine to five to become a full time writer. Walden was his bible. Simplify. Adaptation to serenity took a few months but eventually the writer was able to write. At night, Gary and Wade played board games, including Candyland. Lack of television caused intense withdrawal and cabin fever. Rouse’s description of no TV is hilarious. The modern day Thoreau first cheated with a trip to Wal-Mart for supplies. So much for roughing it; Henry David is spinning in his grave. At least Wal-Mart’s inventory did not include Kenneth Cole or other high end fashions. Wade’s faux Thoreau-like existence was just not working. He traveled an hour to a mall and went on a shopping spree. Banana, J. Crew and the Gap happily took his cash. A satellite dish soon followed with every channel available. The pioneers had rejoined modern society. Lake Michigan causes snow to fall in feet, not inches, and so the boys almost dropped dead from exhaustion with shovels before hiring a local man with a plow. A couple of eccentric neighbors casually mentioned owning night vision glasses to keep an eye on things. Wade looked for thicker curtains for the windows. The author resented a neighbor’s run down trailer near his 2,000 square foot cabin. He then recalled his boyhood and a story of some less fortunate neighbors in trailers as he attempted to sell them candles for a fund raiser. Mr. Rouse hits his stride here, as I laughed and cried simultaneously. He got me. The real fun began on an ice fishing adventure while wearing a $300 scarf and Kenneth Cole boots not designed for sporting activities. The overpriced footwear does not mix with 17 degree ice. His fishing companions drank Jack Daniels straight from the bottle while Wade whined. A brief karaoke with two large and vocal women is very funny. Next up was a plan to live off the land with a vegetable garden like Thoreau. Gary did not like dirt under his perfectly manicured fingernails and the garden was a complete and total failure. A short encounter with a Tanya Tucker look-a-like selling tomatoes by the roadside made me laugh out loud. A church sponsored pot luck dinner caused Wade to reminisce about a childhood summer bible camp with believer’s speaking in tongues and rolling around on the ground. It is the authors’ most reflective moment, and an insightful one. A nearby Hindu retreat center provided more reasons for reflection. Wade found comfort with the Buddhist Monks at the multi denominational monastery. He was told that there were many paths to God, but personally, like Thoreau, he found God by looking at the lilacs and butterflies. The divine was nature itself. The serious mood changed abruptly with a bizarre visit to a nude beach. In the end, Wade compromised by living in the city and the country at different times of the year. The book is an honest memoir by an extremely talented and witty writer.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author chronicles the first months after having moved with his partner from St. Louis to a cottage in rural Michigan just outside the gay-friendly resort town of Saugatuck. The pages are filled with witty prose in short segments that extoll how a gay couple uproot their lives and transition from an urbane life to a more rural, and hopefully, improved existence. I sought this book based on a recommendation from a friend. It appealed to me because of the humor in hearing of a gay couple moving to the middle of nowhere. In addition, being from Michigan myself, I wanted to hear another person's perspective on the Great Lake State.

The memoir is both touching and humorous. The author recounts many humorous experiences with local neighbors, wildlife and the wide-ranging weather of Michigan. The reader really cheers for the author who is trying to find his “Walden” and improve himself, his relationship and his world around him. He is a sympathetic character who you really want to morph into a new being and yet he is his own enemy. The author spends endless pages explaining his former life of designer labels, non-fat lattés, tanning and teeth-whitening. He appears to be another stereotypical, vapid homosexual who is so self-absorbed it's surprising that he doesn't walk around with a hand mirror all day à la Vanity Smurf. The author describes this vain lifestyle so much, that one believes he may using this hyperbole simply to contrast with the rural, agrarian Michigan to get more laughs. Despite the excessive descriptions of what shoes he is wearing at every possible moment, the author has filled with book with heart and emotional depth which is the real pearl inside this oyster of a memoir. By the end of the book, the reader is closely connected to what the author has experienced and feels the changes he has gone through.

My biggest problem with the book is that I have a hard time believing that the author who grew up in the Ozarks and moved from St. Louis would have such a difficult time in rural Michigan. I would expect such culture shock from one who grew up in New York City and had lived their his or her entire life. However, I don't think of St. Louis as the culture capital of mid-America and I have a hard time believing the transition was so great. For that reason, I feel the descriptions the author gives and the reactions to be exaggerated. Perhaps, none is exaggerated and there is a larger cultural gap between urban and rural living than I expected. I laughed openly several times throughout this book. Many of the scenes and incidents are very funny. In my opinion the book really shined at the more serious parts even making my eyes water. The growth of the author and the interaction with his partner are touching and a welcome contrast to the comedic interaction with the outside world. By the end of the book, I found the memoir inspirational and heartwarming and the desire to seek out my own Walden.

[Traci · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all dream it. Wade Rouse actually did it. Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life and a job he hates, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision of his life or the worst mistake since his botched Ogilvie home perm: to leave culture, cable, and consumerism behind and strike out, a la Thoreau, for rural America - a place with fewer people than in his former spinning class. There, Wade battles blizzards, bloodthirsty critters, and nosy neighbors with night-vision goggles, and discovers some things he always dreamed of but never imagined he'd find - happiness and a home.

If you've ever had dreams of a simpler life, this book is for you. Not so much as a "how-to" guide, but rather as a bit of a cautionary tale: there is a wonderful life out there in the country, but you've got to get thru the culture-shock first. Rouse has given us his version of going "Green Acres", warts and all. And I have never laughed so much in my whole life.

I knew we were off to a fabulous start the first chapter out. Rouse walks out in the night to put some garbage in the trash can, only to be attacked by a raccoon (which he will later name, and even grow fond of, in a weird Stockholm Syndrome kind of way). He's got this thing clawing his head, attached like a live Daniel Boone cap, and he's trying everything he can think of to remove the unwanted critter, including breath spray and lip balm. Eventually he's successful - but not before peeing his "skinny jeans". Love it!

Rouse is no stranger to the country life, having grown up in the Ozarks (a very awkward place for a young gay man). Perhaps some of the most touching scenes are his memories of him and his grandmother sitting on her porch swing, looking out over the countryside, and of course, talking about Thoreau, his grandmother's favorite writer. In fact, the author refers to his new Michigan home as "Wade's Walden", although his journey is quite a bit bumpier than Thoreau's. After all, Thoreau never had to go through latte withdrawal.

This is a wonderfully funny and touching story of a man who has had enough of living the life he thought he should live, and taking the steps to find the life that will truly make him happy. Having done something similar myself (but with much less drama), I completely understood his angst; there were several times when I, too, thought "Oh my god, what am I doing here?" In the end, you just have to trust that things will turn out the way they're meant to, even when things seem to be going wrong all around you.

Definitely recommended, especially if you're in need of a good laugh (or 200 or more).

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabulously gay PR exec moves from the big city to the woods of Michigan in order to write a book. Extreme culture shock ensues. In a funny way.

I picked up this book after reading a positive review in a magazine. It's a memoir and the writer, Wade, is one of those infectiously high-spirited and amusing people that you like even when they're being really self-absorbed and kind of annoying. Wade is one of those gay guys who is in love with his own stereotype. He lives for fab parties, designer clothing, his daily latte and the tanning salon. But his demanding PR job has lost its charm and he dreams of leaving it all behind and writing the great American novel. On a getaway to a lakeside resort town, Wade and his boyfriend impulsively buy a cabin in the woods. They pack up and move to Michigan. And then they immediately wonder what the hell they have done.

Wade at once embraces his new life and the challenges he has set for himself (modeled after Thoreau's experiences in Walden) and desperately misses the lifestyle he had in the city. In one breath he admires the beautiful woods near his home and freaks out because his local market doesn't sell Kashi cereal and fair trade espresso beans. While his whining can be a little over the top, and at times I wanted to shake him and remind him that this was his idea to begin with, the tone of the book is so upbeat and the constant cultural references and self-depreciating jokes so charming that I went along with it. Wade does show his deeper side occasionally. When he writes about his love for his late grandmother, his brother's death as a teen and the daily struggle of growing up gay in the Ozarks, you realize there is more to Wade than his penchant for Burt's Bees lipbalm and women's jeans.

This was a light, quick and amusing read.

[Karyl · Rating 3 out of 5]

In need of something funny and light, I picked this up from the memoirs section of the library. I was really looking forward to it, but alas, it wasn't quite as great as I had hoped. For one thing, I didn't laugh. Not one time. Oh, sure, there were funny bits sprinkled in, but nothing that was laugh-out-loud worthy. (In fact, I just started Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job and have already laughed out loud, or at least snorted, a couple of times.) It's such a shame, because I was looking forward to this being a print-version of The Beekman Boys, that tv show where two gay men from NYC buy a farm in upstate New York. But it didn't even come close.

I found Mr Rouse to be rather off-putting. He's so very shallow, which he fully admits to. He constantly makes fun of everyone, for just about everything. I felt that if he met me in real life, he would mock me to his partner for my clothes, my hair, my makeup, and my weight, instead of listening to whatever I had to contribute to the conversation. I became a bit frustrated with his squeamishness about virtually everything. Look, I am a girl, and he is far more girly than I, squalling about just about everything touching him. Yet he decides to move to the country. Grow up, dude. And this man is forty! How did he get that old and still be so immature?

I really did enjoy the chapter on religion, though. It's like he decided to leave behind his jokes and his obsession with repeating over and over again how gay he is, and just dealt with the subject with honesty and feeling. And I love the imagery he left us with at the end of the chapter, the thought of his mother and he reading the Bible together wherever they may be and finding their "church" there.

I'm not sorry I read this, but I am sure glad I didn't buy it.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have NO idea where I happened to hear of this book, but it's been sitting on my to-read list for quite a while, so I decided to check it out from the library. It is subtitled, "Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life", and was actually very well written. I think it would have been improved if it were about 100 pages shorter, though.

Wade Rouse is gay, and very proud of it. And very proud of his tank tops, lip balm, choker necklaces, etc., etc. He grew up in the Ozarks, and could hardly wait to leave for the big city. Which he did for many years. But - Thoreau's Walden came to "haunt" him. Like many "year" books (A Year of Living Biblically, A year without Made in China, etc), Wade decides to live in the wilderness with his partner Gary, just like Thoreau did. They move to Michigan in winter. There were many parts in the book that made me smile. I have to believe some of his experiences were embellished a bit, but they were definitely funny. Wade sometimes seemed more of a caricature than a real person - but he's describing himself, so who knows????

Wade had designated ten lessons he would like to learn by his living in the "wilderness" experiment - living off the land, writing full time, learning to love the snow......and some of these goals were more easily accomplished than others, but most had many good stories to go along with them. I just got a bit tired of some of the repetitive, over-the-top descriptions and would have eliminated them. A pretty good read overall, though!

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wade Rouse is my new favorite author and this is the book that started it all. I picked this up because I could identify with the title. Rural areas have always scared the crap out of me, conjuring up images of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house. This book was laugh out loud funny from the get go- so hilarious that I actually just used the phrase "laugh out loud funny." His voice and his timing are excellent and really make the book hard to put down. I found myself frequently reading excerpts to my husband which he found entertaining as well, out of context and all.

Beneath it's hilarity, however there is also the poignancy that permeates all of his memoirs. The way he interweaves the Thoureau quotes, questions on spirituality and the stories of the depth of his relationship between him and his partner give the book so many facets of enjoyment. I had originally borrowed from the library, but bought it immediately after I read it. I knew it was one I had to have as part of my collection.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wade Rouse is what you might call "indoorsy." This isn't intended as an insult-- I am also decidedly indoorsy, so I'm in no position to judge. However, I would never consider moving to a rustic cabin in rural Michigan to get in touch with nature, which is exactly what Rouse decides to do. Inspired by Thoreau, Rouse and his partner Gary ditch their high-maintenance urban lifestyle and move to the middle of nowhere, where Rouse hopes to concentrate on his writing. Hilarity ensues.

Rouse has a very distinct literary voice, and I really enjoyed his writing style. Comparisons to David Sedaris are inevitable, but not totally justified. Rouse's sense of humor is quite different-- he's snarkier and much less subtle, and his style is a perfect fit for the story being told here. At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream is both incredibly fun and surprisingly heartfelt, and I look forward to checking out more of Rouse's work in the future!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Rouse's America's Boy quite a bit, though gave up early on his next one, Mommy Handler. This one falls somewhere between the two. He's a good writer, and knows how to laugh at himself, but either he's playing up his and Gary's shallow materialism for comic effect, or they're really, really shallow and materialistic! And here's the problem: he extrapolates that most, if not all, gay guys are the same. At one point he asserts that they (we!) cannot live without regular tanning visits. I've never been to such an establishment, nor ever met anyone who's mentioned to me that they have done so! If he meant that for comic effect, I took it as stereotypically insulting; if he seriously believes that to be true, he's got reality issues.
Recommended, but you have to promise to let me know how you find it Future Reader!

[Shannon Rowell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly if I could have given this no stars, I would have. Boring story of a spoiled self-obsessed city dweller fascinated with Henry David Thoreau who choses a seaside Michigan town in which to have his own “simple-life Walden Pond” experience and fails. Where he strives for deep self-analysis, he just comes off as bitchy. Complains through the whole book about those native to rural life in Michigan, about the seasons, about nature, about missing city life. Good Lord. As someone born and raised in Michigan, I am sad he chose our state for his “experiment”. There’s the door, you are so miserable? Get out. The only saving graces to this story are his boyfriend Gary, an interesting, kind and incredibly patient individual, and his dog Marge, both of whom would be better off alone than to spend the rest of their eternity with this drag.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming book. I read a bit of it in October before I had to put it down for the month of November to work on my own book. Picked it up again December 1st and laughed my way through it.

I really don't know how to explain this in a way that will do it justice. A gay man and his partner move from the city to the middle of nowhere and try to survive without the luxuries that they had been used to. All the misadventures are hilarious as they battle with nature, the snow, and each other.

The only part I would have liked more of would be a deeper understanding of what Gary was going through.

Hope to pick up his other books at some point, because the humor in the writing is a real page turner!

[Peggy Gilpatric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wade is the worst, and he doesn’t get any better. I wanted to like him. I wanted him to go through some spiritual awakening. At the very least, he could become less of a judgmental douche. However, in the last few pages of the book, he still manages to lament the fact that he lives next to a trailer and gentrification can’t come too soon. One third of this book involves Wade describing his name brand clothing. I almost want to count the references to Banana Republic. Another third of the book contains exhausted pop culture references. The rest of the book is mildly amusing. I might have added one more star, but he made a short bus joke. Mocking the disabled, a bit of racial stereotyping, and I’m out.

Oh, and Simon was the chipmunk with the glasses, not Alvin. Jesus.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

While perhaps not the most perfect book in a literary sense, I found this book hugely entertaining--more cheeseburgers and fries for the brain (thank you, Mrs. Miller). An urban gay couple moves to the dune 'n' orchard country of southwestern Michigan, so that the author can attempt a recreation of Thoreau's Walden Pond experiment. It is full of delightful language (read: profanity) and colorful stories of raccoon attacks, country driving habits, and trips to the local feed store amongst more...traditional clientele. Read this book on the beach.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rouse is hilarious and self-deprecating about being a stereotypical city-loving gay man in the middle of "Wade's Walden" as he attempts to try simplifying his life (ala Walden.) I laughed out loud in public places but also appreciated his attempts to grow while he was there as well as be honest about ways he may not be changing as much as he thinks (cynicism from the city etc.)

Loved it enough to buy another one of his books while I was still reading this one. :-)

[Angelic Lovestrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite genre to read is memoir and Wade Rouse is my favorite memoirist yet! He made me laugh, cry, laugh even harder, think, feel, laugh until I cried, and think some more. He's a wonderful writer and a giving teacher - I can't put a monetary value on how much he has given me through his writing and his workshops and book signings. I highly recommend this writer and any opportunity you have to meet him!

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I pick up this book not knowing anything about the author (or read anything previous from him) and I have been laughing my @$$ off, if you like your humor raw and uncompromising this book is hilarious about a gay man living Thourea's dream. Wade keeps a score card on living the simple life and well it's pure entertainment.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, Wade Rouse is who I want David Sedaris to be. Almost as funny, less edgy, but just adorable. He moves from the city to a cabin outside of Saugatuck and gives up Dolce and Gabana for chipmunks and Thoreau. The descriptions of Michigan's critters, winters, and people alone are worth it!! I was praying I'd run into him in Saugatuck last week, but no such luck.