A Countryman’s Journal

Roy Barrette

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ISBN: 9781952143441
ITEM: ISL128 Category: Tags: , ,

A Countryman’s Journal

Views of Life and Nature from a Maine Coastal Farm

  Author:   Roy Barrette    
  Publisher:  Islandport Press

In 1958, Roy Barrette (1897-1995) and his wife left Philadelphia for a small saltwater farm in Brooklin, Maine. He later wrote he wasn’t looking to “escape anything, but to find something.” At rundown Amen Farm he found the quiet, simple life he was seeking. He worked to rebuild the property and became a neighbor and friend of the famed writer, E.B. White, with whom he often enjoyed a fine martini. Like White, Barrette began writing. His new life and farm, with its barnyard animals, library of his favorite literature, and abundance of home-grown produce, gave Barrette the fuel to create evocative weekly columns for the local newspaper at the behest of legendary editor James Russell Wiggins. The former insurance salesman also enjoyed a deep appreciation for old New England country ways—from canning his own vegetables and steaming freshly dug clams to taking walks with his spaniel and helping birth calves—and through them created a world for himself dramatically different from his former urban life. A Countryman’s Journal, originally published in 1981, is a collection of the essays offering personal glimpses into the joys of small-town Maine life.

Details and Specs
ISBN associated with this title: 9781952143441
Item ISL128
PublisherIslandport Press
PublisherIslandport Press
Published on May 24 2022
Language eng
Pages 216
Format Paperback
Dimensions0(in) x 0(in)
Shipping weight0(g)
Status NOT YET PUBLISHED

Roy Barrette got his first glimpse of Maine in 1919 while working as a deckhand on a coal barge. In 1958, after ten years at sea and a career as an insurance salesman in Philadelphia, Barrette and his wife, Helen, moved to a coastal farm in Maine where he tended his garden, kept a few barnyard animals, and wrote an award-winning weekly column for The Ellsworth American and The Berkshire Eagle. His essays also appeared in Down East and Yankee magazines. Barrette penned two more books, A Countryman's Bed Book and A Countryman's Farewell, before his death in 1995 at 98.