Place He Made

Edie met Paul Clark, a sheltered New Englander who still lived with his father, when he began working for her husband as a carpenter. In evocative prose Edie, a writer for Yankee Magazine, describes how their friendship blossomed into love as her own marriage was failing. Although Paul had a history of mental problems and was so reclusive that he rarely left his small New Hampshire town, his gentleness, craftmanship and love of nature struck a responsive chord in Edie. After she divorced, Edie and Paul married and had a year of happiness before Paul was diagnosed with a fatal form of cancer. Edie details their two years together as Paul underwent painful and unsuccessful treatments, and she describes her own battle with uterine cancer. Throughout their struggle, the couple hung on to their mutual love and wrested as much happiness as possible for themselves by building a new house and delighting in the natural beauty that surrounded them. Paul died in 1989, and this memoir is a hymn to their unusual love story. 40,000 first printing; first serial to Yankee Magazine; author tour. (May)