Drinking the Rain

In an elegant text, Shulman (Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen) describes the results of her abrupt decision, at the age of 50, to spend summers in a crude cabin on an island off the Maine coast. Her aim was to leave behind a hectic life in New York City--``waste; consumption; conflict; politics''--and a crumbling marriage: ``Though we were yoked together for decades, I feel as threatened as if he were the hacker.'' In their place she seeks to discover ``who I am when the tide runs out.'' She means this quite literally; during 10 years spent living in an isolated house with no plumbing or electricity, Shulman let the rough beach beyond her door become her physical and intellectual sustenance. The potential for sentimentality is undercut by Shulman's evocative, witty and subtle prose and by her rueful awareness of civilization's assault on the fragile environment. 25,000 first printing (Apr.)