Here and Gone

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Turning seventy, Thomas Farber appraises the writing life, aging, love, his own fate, and ours. In this spare, elegant volume he takes the measure of both his vocation and, in several quite different ways, his troubled heart. Retracing a life's paths—Boston, northern California, Honolulu—and marveling at the closely observed natural world, he evokes his extraordinary poet-mother, treasured books and friends, the miracle of love in late marriage, endangered monk seals in Hawai'i, how a life in art may end, and why one might choose not to 'go home.' 'Unafraid of feelings, unafraid of life as it is lived in the heart' ( Newsday ), Thomas Farber confronts both his own fate and ours.

"Thomas Farber's writing has always been characterized by the tension between the concision of its execution and the immensity of its concerns. Here and Gone is brief, elegant and deeply moving. Intellectually omnivorous and agile, it is also as expansive, funny and full of life as only a book written in the full awareness of mortality can be."—James Bradley

"In our youth-obsessed culture, writers willing to confront what lies ahead are surprisingly rare. In spare, heart- achingly beautiful prose, Farber moves between Berkeley, Boston and Honolulu, exploring the hard inevitable truth of mortality and reflecting on his life, loves, and work…There are moments of levity, but ultimately Here and Gone is deeply serious, deeply human."—Shawna Yang Ryan