By Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer
Translated by Ida H. Washington and Carol E. Washington
Introduction by Elisa Albert

“These literate glimpses of rural America make good stand-alone chapter reads: raising chickens, meeting reticent New England neighbors, marveling at the mysterious USDA pamphlets or the Sears, Roebuck catalog, journeying to the Dartmouth library, etc…This volume will be of special regional and historical interest as well as of general interest in public libraries where anecdotal essays are popular.”—Booklist

“The Zuckmayers’ courage and strength is an inspiration to all who may be set in unfamiliar surroundings, even in their own country.”—Publishers Weekly

“The book offers readers an interesting historical perspective of Vermont during the war years, as well as an inspiring narrative on the indomitable human instinct to survive….The contemporary reader will come away feeling inspired by the Zuckmayers’ perseverance and with renewed gratitude for all of the amenities (like heat) which we now take for granted.”—Jennifer Falvey, Vermont Standard

Alice and Carl Zuckmayer lived at the center of Weimar era Berlin. She was a former actor turned medical student, he was a playwright, and their circle of friends included Stefan Zweig, Alma Mahler, and Bertolt Brecht. But then the Nazis took over and Carl’s most recent success, a play satirizing German militarism, impressed them in all the wrong ways. The couple and their two daughters were forced to flee, first to Austria, then to Switzerland, and finally to the United States. Los Angeles didn’t suit them, neither did New York, but a chance stroll in the Vermont woods led them to Backwoods Farm and the eighteenth-century farmhouse where they would spend the next five years. In Europe, the Zuckmayers were accustomed to servants; in Vermont, they found themselves building chicken coops, refereeing fights between fractious ducks, and caring for temperamental water pipes “like babies.” But in spite of the endless work and the brutal, depressing winters, Alice found that in America she had at last discovered her “native land.” This generous, surprising, and witty memoir, a best seller in postwar Germany, has all the charm of an unlikely romantic comedy.

Paperback
256 pages
NYRB Classics, 2017
Originally published 1949
5 x 0.6 x 8 inches 
ISBN 9781681370743
Memoir