Gaining Ground

By Joan Barfoot

Book Overview

Unearthed after half a century, this radical portrait of a woman who leaves her family to live alone in a woodland cabin will pierce the heart of anybody who has ever wanted to escape.

I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra is a wife and mother living a suburban dream--until one day, she walks away. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?

Gaining Ground, published as Abra in North America, is a both a radical meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape--who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.

"One of those rare books which put you in touch with yourself as deftly and as deeply as The Bell Jar." --Nell Dunn, author of The Muse

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571399886
• ISBN13: 9780571399888
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 208 Pages

Customer Reviews

Not all feminist literature is about scary lesbians

That's what Abra - the publication I read was titled Gaining Ground - was for me. This was one of the few, if not only, solid, thought provoking, challenging (the adjectives could be many) books which presented a strong woman who recognised her life within the box and got out without being patronising to the character or the reader. A surprisingly gripping novel, although I certainly didn't like Abra to begin with, Barfoot's world is real and I found myself as drawn to it as Abra.

It gave me power in a difficult time!

The message I got out of this book: what do you really want for yourself, and are you creating your life that way?? Finding an answer to this question again and again is probably the most important thing to live a fulfilling life. Living in Germany I was happy to find a German translation of the title, that has been translated most carefully, so that the book also "works" in German.

This is my all time favorite book -it was food for my soul!

When things were getting me down, and I wanted to flee, but couldn't, Abra's escape provided me with a kind of refuge. By the extremity of her escape I could see that, although it sounded ideal, there were drawbacks as well. I really loved the description of the cottage when she first saw it. This is really a memorable book, and I thank Joan Barfoot for writing it.It is one of the few books that I have read twice in my many years of being a "chain reader".