House of Steps Finding the Path Home Author:Amy Blackmarr For vicarious seekers of the simple life who loved Going to Ground, here are more graceful and pithy essays--from its author's move to a quirky habitat in rural Kansas. — "Lovely," said the Chicago Tribune of Going to Ground, which the Washington Post Book World called "by turns pert and engaging, musing and meditative... more » . . . gives us the warmth of Amy Blackmarr's friendship, and the remarkable gift of watching her come to know herself. " Now Blackmarr returns from her granddaddy's old Georgia pond-side cabin to a northeast Kansas bluff and a tree-high house crazily cobbled into four floors of rocky walls, mazelike stairs, and drafts. Alone with her three dogs, she again weaves scenes from her past into reflections on the present, plucking from everyday life the bright gems of wonder and meaning in an extraordinary world.
In the vibrant midwestern silence, where far-off voices play alarming tricks at night, Blackmarr gets lost in the woods, battles wasps but refuses to step on roaches, takes in her third stray dog, frets over the "corruption" of her mother, confronts a blushing mailman with her Victoria's Secret catalog, collects bugs in a bowl, and confronts her own perfectionism. All teach her the deepest lessons about herself, her community, and her God. Like Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, House of Steps is an ode to "the remarkable and incorruptible process of living from day to ordinary day." Warm, lyrical, and gently ironic, it is Blackmarr's "clear space you can go back to and rest in on days when you can't put your feet on that ground."« less