Gaining Ground

'An intricately, perfectly mapped journey into self-liberation. It ventures the question: how to live with, rather than against, oneself - an enormous, shimmering question that now lives inside me. I think it will for the rest of my days.' Samantha Harvey 'A joyful and generative novel about running away to make a new home for a new self.' Sarah Moss 'An outstanding sense of place and inner space: unsettling as well as memorable.' Margaret Drabble 'Beneath the radical disquiet is a beautiful hymn to the hearts and minds of women.' Sarah Hall I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it. Abra has a perfect-seeming life as a wife and mother: until one day, she walks away, leaving only a note asking her family not to look for her. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean? Joan Barfoot's Gaining Ground is a both a provocative meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape - who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free. What readers are saying: So damn extraordinary. This book meant everything to me. An instant all-time favorite. I loved reading this book . . . A story of impossible bravery, survival and reconciliation. A beautiful story about a woman who puts her own happiness in life above her maternal duties. One of the most influential novels I have ever read. Wonderful. So much food for thought. I never re-read books, but this is one of the first I'll make an exception for. A quiet masterpiece.