Field House

Born of illustrious New England stock, Rachel Field was a National Book Awardwinning novelist, a Newbery Medalwinning children's writer, a poet, playwright, and rising Hollywood success in the early twentieth century. Her light was abruptly extinguished at the age of forty-seven, when she died at the pinnacle of her personal happiness and professional acclaim. Fifty years later, Robin Clifford Wood stepped onto the sagging floorboards of Rachel's long-neglected home on the rugged shores of an island in Maine and began dredging up Rachel's history. She was determined to answer the questions that filled the house's every crevice: Who was this vibrant, talented artist whose very name entrances those who still remember her work? Why is that workso richly remunerated and widely celebrated in her lifetimeso largely forgotten today? The journey into Rachel's world took Wood further than she ever dreamed possible, unveiling a life fraught with challenge, and buried by tragedy, and yet incandescent with joy. The Field House is a book about beautybeauty in Maine island landscapes, in friendship, love, and heartbreak; beauty hidden beneath a woman's woefully unbeautiful exterior; beauty in a rare, delightful spirit that still whispers from the past. Just listen.