Notes from Nethers: Growing Up In A Sixties Commune (Paperback)

by Sandra Lee Eugster (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
There are iconic excesses—nude sweat-lodge ceremonies, interminable house meetings, ghastly raw-food diets, a public birthing followed by placenta-enriched soup—in the author's fraught memoir of her childhood on the titular rural Virginia commune and attached free school, founded by her mother, Carla. Psychologist Eugster was duly scarred by the countercultural chaos and flux of strangers into, and friends out of, the commune, which left her feeling trapped in freedom, lonely, alienated and withdrawn, a child adrift in an adult's idealized venture. Still, this isn't Augusten Burroughs territory. Nothing too outrageous happened to Eugster, and Carla, the book's charismatic, domineering center, also appears a responsible parent who fights epic battles to enforce a 9 p.m. bedtime. Indeed, many of the traumas that occasion Eugster's dudgeon—a snit with a schoolmate who rebuffs her, a pet accidentally run over by a communard's car—seem like ordinary growing pains. Young Sandra's sensitive, sometimes neurotic temperament often looms larger than the commune's transient, unstructured environment in explaining her intense feelings of anomie and abandonment. Eugster paints an engaging portrait of the odd Nethers lifestyle, but it's very much a child's view—an idiosyncratic perspective that alternates between scenes of idyllic beauty and small tragedies blown out of proportion. (Dec.)
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Review
How can an endeavor founded on love and community traumatize a child? Sandra Eugster's fascinating account of her mother's radical plan to remove her children from an ordinary suburban childhood to found a commune is a riveting, evocative documentary of a time and a place--and its effect on a life--that might be that rare thing, a story that could have been told by no one else. I love this book. -- Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of Still Summer

In this probing, intimate memoir, Eugster recounts the challenges of growing up in an environment where hte margin between freedom and endangerment is slim . . . But Eugster, now a psychologist, also writes with deep tenderness about her family, the skills and strength she gained from her exceptional youth, and the shifting relationship between parents and maturing children . . . this is a fascinating, evenhanded view of counterculture life in the 1970s. -- Booklist

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897335619
• ISBN-13: 978-0897335614
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #319,663 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life in a Sixties Commune, December 20, 2007

By	Nancy R. Matus (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sandra Eugster tells a compelling story about her experiences growing up on a sixties commune. She is thrust into an adult life-style without the background and skills to cope with it, and certainly not by choice. The book gives a rich and detailed picture of life on a hippy commune. For those of us who lived during the same times in a more conventional way, it paints a colorful canvas of an alternative way of life. The author's relationship with the other members of the commune, her mother, and sisters involves the reader emotionally and keeps one wondering what could possibly happen next.
I highly recommend Notes from Nethers: Growing Up In A Sixties Communeas an informative and entertaining real life memoir.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A matter-of-fact glimpse into what commune life was truly like: the good, the bad and the ugly., February 2, 2008

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Notes from Nethers: Growing Up in a Sixties Commune is the true-life memoir of author Sandra Eugster, largely centering around her adolescence in a commune in rural Virginia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The commune Nethers, started by Eugster's mother Carla, was meant to promote social change and grounded in the counterculture of the era. Immersed in the culture shock of commune life at the tender age of nine, Eugster had to adjust along with her older sisters to the complexities of commune life, weekly consensus meetings, days of silence, sweat-hut rituals, and more. Yet even more challenging was making the re-adjustment to the outside world after the commune dissolved - studying for SATs (given that her own education ended at third grade), and gradually learning social skills that she'd never had the opportunity to cultivate amid years of isolation from "normal" people her own age. "The wish to return to innocence came with the thought that by removing the barriers between adult and child, the children could be the bridge back to innocence. But the force of nature goes the other direction, and many children lost their innocence devastatingly early. I often think I was fortunate not to have been molested. But in a sense I was. My exposure to sexual matters was premature, as was my close contact with extreme human peculiarities and, ultimately, the harsh reality of adults doing what was right for themselves as opposed to their charges." Highly recommended as a matter-of-fact glimpse into what commune life was truly like: the good, the bad and the ugly.

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for parents or would-be parents, April 5, 2009

By	Edward L. Blume "Ed Blume" (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A must read for any parent or anyone thinking about becoming a parent!

Not a how-to-parent book by a psychologist or parent, but a courageous and chilling account of growing up in a 1970's commune with parents who did not understand that being a parent means devoting your life to your child or children, not to your hobbies or careers or simply the things that interest you (a commune in the case of Sandra's mother or work in the case of her father).

Eugster describes her lonely, confusing life without an accessible adult (they're all too consumed in their own pursuits) who can help her understand the complexities of growing up and perplexities of adult behavior. She has no reassuring adult who asks "How are you today? Are you feeling okay? Can I be helpful in any way?"

To today's parents or would-be parents, if you can't make your child or children your most important life-work, that's fine. Just don't have them thinking that you can go about your life as if they don't need you.

Oh, by the way, Eugster's writing entertains anyone who loves language. With a few words, she captures a situation, as when being chased by a pack of dogs, she feared becoming "Alpo in an instant," or when a commune teenager decided to "get on the yellow bus of convention" to attend a public school instead of the commune school.

Don't delay. Read the book today for guidance for parents, a child's view of growing up, and simple pleasure.