Braving Home: Dispatches from the Underwater Town, the Lava-Side Inn, and Other Extreme Locales

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Stories of Survival
Review: "It was one thing to daydream about this in my Washington, D.C., cubicle; it was another thing to take up residence in a house that rested precariously in the hearth of an erupting volcano." ~Jake Halpern

The minute I saw this book, I became rather intrigued. You always wonder what it would be like to live in an extreme climate and this book tells you about all the people who live in extreme locales from North Carolina to Hawaii. If you think it might be interesting to read about people living in towns ravaged by wildfires, erupting volcanoes or ocean storms, this is your book.

Jake Halpern has written for the New Republic, The New Yorker, Commonweal and other magazines. He has lived in New York, Prague, Tel Aviv, Washington, D.C. and India and seems to enjoy visiting really dangerous places.

The authors interest in people who don?t want to move seems to originate from a time when he wrote a story about Jewish settlers living in Hebron. When he returned to the United States, he wondered if the desire to keep one's home was more universal than originally thought. Jake Halpern has also been known to return to where he grew up in Buffalo, New York. As he says: "I kinda like it here." The area is also inhabited by people who refuse to leave.

Soon, he was writing a story about Centralia, Pennsylvania where the coal mines have been on fire for almost 40 years. He became intrigued by the thought that in a world of jetsetters, "permanent homes" still existed.

In this book you get to vicariously experience the lives of brave souls who refuse to move. While the average American is moving 12 times during their life, some residents have said enough is enough and not even an eviction notice sends them packing. They remain in frozen outposts, submerged towns and other seemingly godforsaken places.

Through Halpern's writing, you will journey to an underwater town in Princeville, N.C; The Lava-Side Inn, Royal Gardens, Hawaii; the Canyon of the Firefighting Hillbillies in Malibu, California; the Home of the Storm Riders in Grand Isle, Louisiana; and the Unique Indoor city/tower in Wittier, Alaska.

If you get a job offer from any of these places, may I suggest this book?

You can visit with Thad Knight who survived Hurricane Floyd and found peace returning to his old home instead of staying at the cramped gravel parking lot of the displacement camp. His story of survival is quite amazing. Not only did he have to get the power company to put his property back on the grid, he had to remove coffins from his lawn in N.C.

The story of Whittier, Alaska is rather fascinating. Let us just conclude that if Babs Reynolds could survive her three husbands, Alaska is no problem. There is also some humor and stories of Brenda Tolman and her pet reindeers who try to escape into the snowbanks.

Why anyone would continue to build homes in Malibu, is beyond me. Millie Decker has been fighting fires since 1928. Believe it or not, I could relate to beating the ground furiously with wet gunnysacks. I loved the story of the pet mountain lions!

Researching The Lava-Side Inn sounds like a good reason for a vacation, although once you read about Jack Thompson operating a B&B in the middle of a lava flow, it gets a bit tricky. It is interesting how Jake and Jack have a similar interest in people "Living on the Edge." If you think walking on top of a lava flow is interesting, wait until you read about what happens when it rains.

The story of "Island Storm Riders" brought back memories. These people are brave, brave, brave! Get out the kerosene lanterns. You will also learn why people are buried above ground. Those who are alive are not the only ones riding out the storms.

It was interesting to learn about place identity,Projected Dates of Disappearance, to feel a sense of homesickness for places you have never been, and to remember various situations where you could relate directly to the experiences in this book. "Braving Home" reveals the true sense of home and gives you the feeling that we are all survivors, no matter where we live.

Halpern's "traveling to dangerous places" writing is fresh, witty and he has a real talent for investigating the forsaken. You just have to love how stubbornly some Americans hold onto that place we call home. In the Epilogue he tells how he returns to each location.

One of the most intriguing and heartfelt books on "home" I've read this year! You end up feeling like you were the one visiting all these locations. The writing is spectacular in its creativity and depth. I look forward to reading future books by this talented author.

~Hurricane Luis survivor, [website]

Rating:
Summary: The new Charles Kurault
Review: Ever since the death of Charles Kurault I have been searching for someone who can showcase people across this great nation with warmth, fascination and respect.Jake Halpern does that with style, grace and empathy.

Rating:
Summary: Makes my home seem boring--but safe!
Review: Extremely entertaining! Fun to read! Interesting characters! Unmatched locales! I returned again and again to this wonderful book during my spare time. I'm not sure Halpern really comes up with explanations for why people live in such dangerous, out-of-the-way places, but his descriptions of those people and their homes are simply fascinating. Read it--and maybe you'll be looking to buy a home in Royal Gardens, Hawaii!

Rating:
Summary: Life on the Edge
Review: I heard Jake Halpern interviewed on NPR and had to buy the book. He's fascinated with far away places, and the people who live there. He answers the question I think we've all had when traveling "who lives here, why, and what are they like?"

Halpern takes on his journey from one edge of America to the other visiting small communities at the edge of civilization. We get to know the people who live in relative danger and seclusion.

What I found interesting was that many of the folks he brings us along to meet are more afraid of living in cities than staying in the extreme locations where they've been for years. Their feeling of stability living in an outwardly unstable environment tells us something about the power of home, the power of place in our lives.

Halpern has an easy, flowing writing style that doesn't get in the way of the story and is very readable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it quickly. It's been a couple of months now since I finished, and I've found myself thinking back often to the people I met through Halpern, unique people living in unique locations.

Rating:
Summary: Life on the Edge
Review: I heard Jake Halpern interviewed on NPR and had to buy the book. He's fascinated with far away places, and the people who live there. He answers the question I think we've all had when traveling "who lives here, why, and what are they like?"

Halpern takes on his journey from one edge of America to the other visiting small communities at the edge of civilization. We get to know the people who live in relative danger and seclusion.

What I found interesting was that many of the folks he brings us along to meet are more afraid of living in cities than staying in the extreme locations where they've been for years. Their feeling of stability living in an outwardly unstable environment tells us something about the power of home, the power of place in our lives.

Halpern has an easy, flowing writing style that doesn't get in the way of the story and is very readable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it quickly. It's been a couple of months now since I finished, and I've found myself thinking back often to the people I met through Halpern, unique people living in unique locations.

Rating:
Summary: A Choice Of Disasters
Review: I teach high school earth science in earthquake country. I always tell my students that no matter where they live, there is some disaster that could befall them, and that learning to live with the characteristics of a place is always a good idea. But some places are definitely worse than others, and I've wondered for a long time what motivates people to live in places of extreme danger. [Note to the readers of this review: everywhere in western California is earthquake country, but I bought a house with the least amount of flood and wildfire danger that I could find!] Braving Home by Jake Halpern has helped me get an answer to my question.

Braving Home is very much in the style of writing popularized by folks like John McPhee. Halpern pours himself into his subject by insinuating himself into the lives of the folks and the places he's writing about for a week at a time [he always brings a tent, but never seems to use it]. Halpern writes with great respect for his subjects, even though it would have been so easy to write them off as crazy. Even though I would probably not choose to live in any one of these situations, I found myself envying something about each of the people Halpern features in the stories.

Braving home should appeal to folks who enjoy travelogue, history, psychology, and natural disasters. I recommend you go to extremes with Jake Halpern and Braving Home.

Rating:
Summary: A Choice Of Disasters
Review: I teach high school earth science in earthquake country. I always tell my students that no matter where they live, there is some disaster that could befall them, and that learning to live with the characteristics of a place is always a good idea. But some places are definitely worse than others, and I've wondered for a long time what motivates people to live in places of extreme danger. [Note to the readers of this review: everywhere in western California is earthquake country, but I bought a house with the least amount of flood and wildfire danger that I could find!] Braving Home by Jake Halpern has helped me get an answer to my question.

Braving Home is very much in the style of writing popularized by folks like John McPhee. Halpern pours himself into his subject by insinuating himself into the lives of the folks and the places he's writing about for a week at a time [he always brings a tent, but never seems to use it]. Halpern writes with great respect for his subjects, even though it would have been so easy to write them off as crazy. Even though I would probably not choose to live in any one of these situations, I found myself envying something about each of the people Halpern features in the stories.

Braving home should appeal to folks who enjoy travelogue, history, psychology, and natural disasters. I recommend you go to extremes with Jake Halpern and Braving Home.

Rating:
Summary: Journalistic in the best sense
Review: I'm not a big fan of non-fiction -- many of its authors either step too far away from their subjects in an attempt to recount the story as accurately as possible, thus transforming their books into nothing more than long newspaper articles, or they inject so much narrative warmth that I'm left wondering how much they fiddled with the truth.

But Jake Halpern has struck the perfect balance with his book. His tone resonates throughout the entire narrative structure, just close enough to give you a sense of his role in this story, and yet maintaining enough distance to give his characters center stage. A wise decision on Jake Halpern's part, because characters are what makes this book so incredible.
They are a collection of homesteaders in the truest sense, people who refuse to leave their home no matter how remote or dangerous -- from Babs Reynolds, a woman who lives in a tundra-surrounded tower in Whittier, Alaska, to Jack Thompson, the last man remaining in Royal Gardens, Hawaii, cut off from civilization by the steady encroachment of lava from a nearby volcano.

This is non-fiction at its finest but it goes beyond that -- if art's ultimate aim is to evoke humanism, Jake Halpern's BRAVING HOME has done just that. When I finished the book, his characters could have been no more alive than if I'd known them my entire life.

An excellent debut book from a clearly gifted writer. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating armchair travel
Review: If home is where the heart is, then what ties to a person to a certain physical space, especially when that place has been destroyed by natural or man-made disaster? The author travels to some interesting places (a flood plain town swept away by water, a house on lava fields) to interview individuals making a stand to stay in a near-uninhabitable place they call home.
This is fascinating armchair travel that also raises issues of retribution and isolation as well as home.

Rating:
Summary: No Nomads Here
Review: Imagine living in a home surrounded by lava flows, or on a small island where hurricanes are common and the one road out will be covered with water well before the storm hits. Jack Halpern has given a view, not only of five very extreme living conditions, but also of the strong-willed people who tenaciously cling to the place they call home. It is hard to decide which is more memorable, the unforgiving land or the people who weather the elements. For these hardy souls, home is a place of roots and continuity, a tenuous place in reality but a concrete place in mind, a place that truly defines them.