This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone

The counterculture movement in late 1960s rural Maine conjures up images of an idyllic life living off the land. This element is present in Melissa Coleman’s memoir, but it is not the exclusive image to emerge from her evocative, atmospheric book. A literary memoir in the tradition of Dave Eggers and Tobias Wolff, Melissa Coleman recounts her childhood spent on the farm her parents purchased, built and tended with their own hands, hoping to create a utopia in which to raise their family in unison with nature. Tragedy and wonder weave through Coleman’s narrative, as she tells of relentless winters, unnerving isolation, and infidelity that rocks her parents’ marriage. Then one summer day when Melissa is seven, her three-year old sister wanders off and disappears into the black water of the irrigation pond built to sustain her family’s crops. Melissa is left to search for truth while tragedy threatens to tear her family apart; a quest that is both deeply human and heartbreaking.