Summer at Little Lava: A Season at the Edge of the World

By Charles Fergus

Book Overview

Little Lava is a farm on the west coast of Iceland. No roads lead to it; the way lies across a lagoon flooded twice a day by the tide. A lava field borders the farm. From the house, views give onto mountains, volcanoes, rugged coast, and the pure Icelandic sky. In Summer at Little Lava , Charles Fergus tells how he fixed up an abandoned house on the farm and spent a summer there with his wife and their young son-living day to day in great simplicity, without heat, electricity, running water, or other conveniences. Inspired by Henry Beston's classic book, The Outermost House -about a year Beston spent living in a cottage on Cape Cod-Fergus sought a place at the outer limits of civilization, and on the coast of Iceland he found it. As it happened, there was a sudden death in his family-the cruel, pointless murder of his mother at her home in Pennsylvania; and so, in the twilit open spaces of Iceland, Fergus confronted his grief, in the midst of the country's abundant wildlife and distinctive geology, its history and mythology. The little house on the coast became a refuge as he sought to recover himself and the meaning of his life. "Little Lava was a place where I could pass the days in peace," he tells us, "where I could take the first steps into a future that, I hoped, would not be so dimmed with grief and pain." Summer at Little Lava is a wise and vigilant book. It touches on Iceland and Icelanders, birds and nature, tragedy and personal loss; in strong, resonant prose, it evokes the strange and compelling landscape of Iceland.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865475490
• ISBN13: 9780865475496
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: North Point Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Nice balance of nature, travel, and journal writing.

My kind of book is a non-fiction book entitled "A Year in (blank)" or any calendar subset of that (e.g., Sue Hubbell's A Country Year). So when I encountered Summer at Little Lava, I was interested. I knew that it wasn't the journal of the author's life for a year in the country. But a summer in a remote cottage on the coast of Iceland was close enough for me. I was not disappointed. I tended to skim over the detail of natural history and bird behavior, but slowed down considerably when Fergus described crossing the lava fields, ocean kayaking, or having coffee with their distant Icelandic neighbors. The mix of natural history, animal and plant description, and story telling was well balanced. There was enough "journal-like" story telling to keep me reading to the end. The chapter "Poison Cold" was so good it was worth re-reading, but be warned -- be close to a woodstove when you read it because it will make you cold. An added human dimension to the book is the occasional memories and thoughts of the author as he wrestles with the deaths of both his mother and his niece. A particularly touching passage recounts the telling to his son of the tragic death of his niece. I recommend this book for all travel and nature readers. And for readers looking for a book without a hidden agenda and unnecessary symbolism. The author simply writes about what he sees and feels . . . and sometimes what he deeply feels.

Of great interest becouse of my lineage

I am third generation Icelandic, all of my grandparents immegrated to america in the late 19th century. They were all: "west coast Icelanders" Reading Fergus's book was of especial interest because my maternal grandmother [Holmfrethur Hansdottir] was born on Oct 20, 1860 at: Litliahrauni, Iceland, the exact site of Little Lava in this book. I have a journal writen by her husband in 1930 that spells out this history. I would like to send a copy of this journal to Mr. Fergus if I can get his address. Thank you.