In his previous book, My Old Man and the Sea, Hays and his father built a sailing boat and navigated around Cape Horn. Theirs was a heartfelt tale of adventure, family and the good old days. Hoping to pull those same heartstrings here, Hays places himself in a Walden-like wilderness. Bored with convention and surviving on diminishing royalty checks, Hays decides to move his family—wife, stepson, dogs and all—to the middle of nowhere for a year. Handily, he already owns a 50-acre wilderness called Whale Island, just off the coast of Nova Scotia and the perfect venue for such an enterprise. The text chronicles those 365 days (wife Wendy refused any more) and is as self-conscious as the move itself, comprising Hays's condescending accounts of his efforts to live deliberately, Thoreau-style, despite the objections of the Tupperware and latté-loving Wendy. Her own writings, and those of his son, are peppered throughout. Not that Hays thinks he is perfect—but he casts himself so enthusiastically as the wronged Woody Allen or John Kennedy Toole hero, he seems a self-perpetuating stereotype. (June 7)
