The Hills of Hingham

Between a daily commute to Boston and a household on Mullein Hill, Dallas Lore Sharp weighs the practical pleasures of country life. These personal essays draw on fourteen years in Hingham, where his family shares its days with a garden, woodlot, hens and bees. Seed catalogues, an open fire, spring ploughing and the ice crop give him occasions to consider how work, parenthood and time alone fit together. His affection for the place includes its caterpillars, expenses and other disappointments.

Sharp also turns an amused eye on his own role as a nature writer. A visitor from Dubuque arrives with passages from his essays committed to memory, leaving the author to wonder how closely the actual hill matches its literary appearance. The collection offers readers interested in domestic life and the countryside a record of contentment tested by ordinary chores, with humor arising from the gap between an ideal home and the effort of living there.