The Old Whitaker Place, ppb

In The Old Whitaker Place, we walk with Tom Whitaker through the last years of his long life. He lives alone in a Vermont farmhouse built by his great-grandfather shortly after the Civil War and struggles with blizzards and squatters, with aphids and storm windows, and with Ben, his only child. But most importantly, he struggles with himself and with the indignities of advancing age. Too infirm to live on his own but fiercely attached to the family land, he devises various schemes to permit him to remain at home. His situation looks increasingly hopeless until he meets Teresa, a strong, like-minded woman thirty years his junior. Told in Tom’s dry, cranky, sardonic voice, this short novel reveals much about life’s richness—and absurdity—in the face of adversity.