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kinderny's review
5.0
One of my favorite books from my childhood had a character whose main focus was “outer space and inner pie”.* Sue Hubbell in the first essay in her book, Far Flung Hubbell: Essays from the American Road, appears to share the latter obsession. She goes on an odyssey to find the best pie in America, criss-crossing the country to hunt down not only the basics (apple pie), but also more exotic fare. Hubbell takes recommendations from the locals as to the best pie and often finds they steer her right. She found one “great truth” in her great pie search: if you want good pie, never order within one mile of the interstate. Reading the essay makes the reader hungry to recreate a similar quest.
The rest of the essays in the book are equally engaging. Hubbell’s love of the outdoors is demonstrated in her essay on canoeing in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. But a deep connection with nature is also a current running below much of the rest work, even when not the main focus of a particular chapter. She has included essays on the decline of the “five and dime” store, artwork based on bugs, and earthquake predictions.
Hubbell is witty, but not at her essay subject’s expense- even the woman reporting recent (circa 1980s) sightings of Elvis. The author is grounded in the country (she raises bees and sells the honey), but focuses on the mundane aspects of life both urban and rural. Many of the essays first appeared as columns in The New Yorker magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so the writing has polish, but it is not high-falutin’ and inaccessible to the casual reader. These are not the kind of essays you had to read in high school, which may have turned you off the genre forever. Overall, while the essays are from twenty years ago, they still are charming and quirky.
* Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
The rest of the essays in the book are equally engaging. Hubbell’s love of the outdoors is demonstrated in her essay on canoeing in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. But a deep connection with nature is also a current running below much of the rest work, even when not the main focus of a particular chapter. She has included essays on the decline of the “five and dime” store, artwork based on bugs, and earthquake predictions.
Hubbell is witty, but not at her essay subject’s expense- even the woman reporting recent (circa 1980s) sightings of Elvis. The author is grounded in the country (she raises bees and sells the honey), but focuses on the mundane aspects of life both urban and rural. Many of the essays first appeared as columns in The New Yorker magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so the writing has polish, but it is not high-falutin’ and inaccessible to the casual reader. These are not the kind of essays you had to read in high school, which may have turned you off the genre forever. Overall, while the essays are from twenty years ago, they still are charming and quirky.
* Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
sandyd's review
4.0
Another collection of essays from a favorite non-fiction author: The Great American Pie Expedition, a look at Hoppin' John, Elvis sightings in the Kalamazoo area, New Madrid earthquake scare, truck stops, art made out of (or by) insects, delivering honey in NYC (including to the World Trade Center basement), the rise (and fall) of the five and dime.
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