Followed by the Lark

November 15, 2023
In her affectionate meander through the life of Henry David Thoreau, Canadian writer Humphreys imagines moments revealing his inner thoughts and feelings. The approach here is straightforward yet lyric. Using brief episodes, from a paragraph to a few pages, Humphreys carefully follows the timeline of events from Henry's first sight of Walden Pond as a 5-year-old to his death at 44. While she covers what might be considered historically significant events--Henry's two years on Walden Pond, the publications of his books, his interactions with other famous figures of the era such as Emerson, Darwin, and John Brown--the restrained tone matches the seemingly unremarkable simplicity of the life recorded in Henry's journal. What matters to him are always the small moments: a bird singing, a buttercup blooming unexpectedly, a conversation. Henry's family looms large, "a club who believed in the same tenets." He and his three siblings are all close to each other and their parents. Progressive abolitionists, they share an indifference to convention and never fail to support each other. When Henry announces at 16 that he wants to build a boat, the rest of the family pitches in to help. And it's with John, his brother, that Henry takes his trip down the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The Thoreaus' happiness would be too idyllic to believe except for the physical fragility, illnesses, and early deaths that dogged them. Friendship is a more complicated issue for Henry. He values his friends but finds their presence, even Emerson's, annoying. Romance is more an idea than a reality to him. Thoreau's real passions are "to remain in the moment" and his "experiences in everyday nature." He notes the publication of Walden in his journal as if it's of no more importance than the ripening of the elderberries. An accessible introduction to Thoreau, whose enthusiasts will find much to delight here.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 4, 2023
Canadian writer Humphreys (Rabbit Foot Bill) paints an impressionistic portrait of Henry David Thoreau as a young man in the 1830s. After a stint on Staten Island, where he tutored a nephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau returns dejected and grief-stricken to the family home in Concord, Mass. The older sister of a former student has rejected his marriage proposal, and his older brother, John, has died suddenly. In Concord, Thoreau works in his father’s pencil factory when not spending time “botanizing” in the woods or hiking and camping. His abolitionist and Transcendentalist neighbors provide a lively intellectual milieu, though he’s discomfited by Emerson’s criticism of his inward nature. Without overpsychoanalyzing her subject, Humphreys gently suggests that Thoreau’s passionate yet chaste attachments to male friends may have concealed his sexuality. Descriptions of seasons changing and other nature scenes become repetitive, though many are arresting in their beauty. The characterization of Thoreau also shines; Humphreys captures his ambivalence toward humankind and his devotion to the great outdoors, his loneliness and moments of elated connection, and his joking exchanges and one-word shorthand with his younger sister, Sophia, a fellow amateur botanist and sketch artist who seems to understand him better than anyone else. Humphreys ably demonstrates the enduring appeal of her subject. Agent: Claire Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc.

Starred review from January 1, 2024
Canadian poet and novelist Humphreys is not the first to write fiction about Henry David Thoreau, but her approach is uniquely lyrical, empathic, and transporting. In brief passages Humphrey traces the naturalist's all too brief life, from his loving, smart, and musical family, who participated in the Underground Railroad, to his fascination with the living world, stint as a teacher, building and living in the now famous cabin at Walden Pond, and his many treks and river voyages. Humphreys offers a piquant view of Henry's friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who encouraged him to write, and offers tantalizing glimpses of his simpatico sister, Sophia. She illuminates his work as a surveyor, his "desire for exactitude," and his diligence and curiosity as he ardently measures and records natural phenomena and documents how quickly the glorious wild is decimated as the railroad intrudes, hunters shoot species into extinction, and forests are cut down. Henry grieves over the frequent deaths of family and friends as his own precarious health erodes. Steeped in Thoreau's writing, Humphreys gracefully and perceptively imagines the inner life of a singular earth ecstatic more comfortable with bluebirds than humans, attuned to the seasons and the lay of the land, and blissful in solitude and communion with the page. A mesmerizing and moving homage.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.