And Then I Am Gone: A Walk with Thoreau by Mathias B. Freese
And Then I Am Gone: A Walk with Thoreau tells the story of a New York City man who becomes an Alabama man. Despite his radical migration to simpler living and a late-life marriage to a saint of sorts, his persistent pet anxieties and unanswerable questions follow him. Mathias Freese wants his retreat from the societal “it” to be a brave safari for the self rather than cowardly avoidance, so who better to guide him but Henry David Thoreau, the self-aware philosopher who retreated to Walden Pond “to live deliberately” and cease “the hurry and waste of life”? In this memoir, Freese wishes to share how and why he came to Harvest, Alabama (both literally and figuratively), to impart his existential impressions and concerns, and to leave his mark before he is gone.
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Author’s Bio
Teacher and psychotherapist, I hold masters degrees in secondary education and social work from Queens College of the City University of New York and Stony Brook University. For more than thirty years I taught English and social studies in New York secondary schools. An analytically trained and insight-oriented psychotherapist, I have incorporated my abiding interest in Eastern thought into my life and my work, leading workshops on experiential and psycho-spiritual approaches to inner awareness.
Listed in Who’s Who in America, 56th Edition, Who’s Who Among American Teachers, A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, and the International Authors Who’s Who, my work emphasizes creativity, spiritual wisdom, self-awareness, transcendence, and meaning. My short fiction has appeared in Jewish Currents, Pig Iron Press, and Skywriters, among other magazines. My nonfiction articles have appeared in the New York Times, Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, and Publishers Marketing Association Newsletter. In 2005, the Society of Southwestern Authors honored me with a first-place award for personal/essay memoir.
Within a two-week span, I wrote i, the first novella of my i Tetralogy. The next three volumes, I Am Gunther, Gunther’s Lament, and Gunther Redux followed in quick succession, fulfilling a compelling, psychologically imaginative need on my part to fathom my own personal sense of Shoah. At the center of the apocalyptic nightmare of the Holocaust is most everything we need know about our nature — and our gods, I have concluded. And so the i Tetralogy aspires to reflect the shadow of that stark reality that happened more than sixty years ago but perturbs us to this day. Google my name or i Tetralogy to find reviews and interviews with me. In January Down to a Sunless Sea, a collection of my short stories, will be published; recently the Tetralogy was awarded the Allbooks Reviews Editor’s Choice Award for best historical fiction of 2007.
My Review
4 stars
This is a story of reflection as Matt tells about moving from his home in Henderson, NV to Harvest, AL. He reminisces about events in his life and how Henry Thoreau would look at them. Being in his seventies he is suffering from that dreaded necessity, old age. You will also see how this has an effect on his and Nina’s lives.
This was an interesting trip as Matt analysis his life and brings you to the closing line “And then I am gone.” He is trying to live a simpler life without fret and worry about things that he cannot control but these things inevitably creep into his life.
I will say that the one thing that really stuck with me was when he was talking about why he writes. “I write because I am compelled to do so by my feelings and thoughts, all that noise in the crankcase of my mind. I believe that writing as an ordering of the cacophony we all have in our minds.” What a great way to explain the reasoning behind writing.
This is a wonderful story. Not everything is perfect but we must keep trudging through this thing we call life and do the best that we can.
I received And Then I Am Gone from the author for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.
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