This Friday we have a poignant, irreverent, and hilarious memoir about survival and self-discovery, by an indomitable woman who never loses sight of what matters most. We hope you enjoy BOOTSTRAPPER.
It’s the summer of 2005, and Mardi Jo Link’s dream of living the simple life has unraveled into debt, heartbreak, and perpetually ragged cuticles. She and her husband of nineteen years have just called it quits, leaving her with serious cash-flow problems and a looming divorce. More broke than ever, Link makes a seemingly impossible resolution: to hang on to her century-old farmhouse in northern Michigan and continue to raise her three boys on well water and wood chopping and dirt. Armed with an unfailing sense of humor and three resolute accomplices, Link confronts blizzards and foxes, learns about Zen divorce and the best way to butcher a hog, dominates a zucchini-growing contest and wins a year’s supply of local bread, masters the art of bargain cooking, wrangles rampaging poultry, and withstands any blow to her pride in order to preserve the life she wants.
With an infectious optimism that would put Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to shame and a deep appreciation of the natural world, Link tells the story of how, over the course of one long year, she holds on to her sons, saves the farm from foreclosure, and finds her way back to a life of richness and meaning on the land she loves.
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Praise for Bootstrapper:
“Link’s story possesses that rare, elusive, but much sought-after feeling of authenticity . . . Glints with Link’s raw, willful energy.”—New York Times Book Review
“A potent cocktail of ingenuity and humor . . . about a mother’s fierce love and the sustaining fabric of family . . . Direct, funny, void of self-pity, and exceedingly humane.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Tough, honest, and appealing . . . will appeal to the bootstrapper in all of us.” —Booklist