Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure [Paperback]

Jon Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Jon Katz, a respected journalist, father, and husband, was turning fifty. His writing career had taken a dubious turn, his wife had a demanding career of her own, his daughter was preparing to leave home for college, and he had become used to a sedentary lifestyle. Wonderfully witty and insightful, Running to the Mountain chronicles Katz's hunger for change and his search for renewed purpose and meaning in his familiar world.

Armed with the writings of Thomas Merton and his two faithful Labradors, Katz trades in his suburban carpool-driving and escapes to the mountains of upstate New York. There, as he restores a dilapidated cabin, learns self-reliance in a lightning storm, shares a bottle of Glenlivet with unexpected ghosts, and helps a friend prepare for fatherhood, he confronts his lifelong questions about spirituality, mortality, and his own self-worth. He ultimately rediscovers a profound appreciation for his work, his family, and the beauty of everyday life--and provides a glorious lesson for us all.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jon Katz couldn't afford a country house--his wife didn't want him to buy it; his career looked like it was going off track; and his daughter was about to leave home for college. But when he saw the view from a decrepit little cabin in the mountains, near Cambridge, New York, he knew he had to have the place. So, against all rational impulses, he bought the cabin and used it as a summer retreat. He read Thomas Merton, helped his best friend prepare to be a father, deepened his relationship with his dog, and wrote a book about the spiritual wisdom that came to him in everyday life. Running to the Mountain: A Journey of Faith and Change includes some particularly elegant and urgent readings of Merton, whose central concerns Katz summarizes as well as anyone has:

Merton was obsessed with a central issue for our time--figuring out how to live, trying to forge a life of balance, purpose and meaning. I've grown to share his obsession, his belief that life demands a lot of tinkering, and requires people to give birth to themselves not just once, but over and over.

--Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The fear of stagnation at age 50 drove Katz, a nonfiction writer (Virtuous Reality) and author of the Suburban Detective series (Death Row, etc.), to buy a rundown cabin he couldn't afford at the top of a mountain in New York State's rural Washington County. Here he spent long periods of time alone with his two dogs. His wife, Paula, initially opposed taking on a second mortgage at a time when they had not only a house in New Jersey badly in need of repairs but also a daughter who would soon be going away to college, but she eventually came to support his decision to seize this time for himself. Although not conventionally religious, Katz used the works of Thomas Merton as inspiration for his own spiritual introspection. He describes the pleasures of living on the mountain (including making a close friend), learning that he could cope with the problems associated with restoring a broken-down cabin and experiencing solitude in a natural landscape. Although Katz's ruminations, which include an extended imaginary conversation with Merton, are sometimes self-absorbed, there's no doubt that he found the faith in himself and the peaceful, reinvigorating retreat that he was seeking on the mountain. 35,000 first printing.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767904982
• ISBN-13: 978-0767904988
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bedlam Farm in upstate New York is where I live, write and tend my animals - four dogs, two donkeys, two barn cats. The rambling old farmhouse was built in 1862; it's surrounded by pastures, streams and wooded hillsides, plus four barns and a milkhouse in various stages of disrepair.

I write books- memoirs, novels, short story collections, and beginning in 2011, children's books. I am also a photographer.

In my former life, before I grew preoccupied with sheepherding and moving manure around. I wanted to change my life and write more about the experience of living with and understanding animals.
I write novels and nonfiction books (I've written 20 books), along with columns and articles for Rolling Stone, Wired, the New York Times, and the website HotWired.
Coming to the farm turned out to be a Joseph Campbell style "Hero's Journey." I went off into some dark places, got divorced, struggled to face myself, and found someone to share my life.

My wife Maria Wulf is an artist, who specializes in fiber art. She works in the Studio Barn across the road from the farmhouse. Earlier this year, I thought briefly of selling Bedlam Farm. After getting married, we decided to stay here. My daughter Emma, a sportswriter living in Brooklyn, has written her own book about New York baseball. I publish a blog I love dearly - www.bedlafarm.com. My photos appear there daily. My dogs are Izzy, Lenore, Frieda and Rose, the working dog who helps me run the farm.

My writing life began with a novel - "Sign Off" - an unwittingly prescient story about the jarring changes in work and security.

This year - 2010 - I am returning to fiction. I've written a novel, "Rose In A Storm," about a border collie stranded on a farm in upstate New York during a terrible storm. I wrote this book in conjunction with some animal behaviorists who helped me enter the mind of a dog, and hopefully, be faithful to that. My first children's book "Meet The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm," will be published by Henry Holt next year. I have just finished a short story collection to be published next year by Villard/Random House.
In recent years, photography has become central to me as well as writing. I have been fortunate enough to have several gallery showings of my work, and also sell my photos as notecards through the Redux Gallery in Dorset, Vt.

I am also working on a book about animal grieving. Hopefully, it will be useful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Living a dream, January 22, 2002

By 

"janmcalex" (Humboldt, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure (Paperback)

Running to the Mountain is your basic mid-life crisis story except that Jon Katz -- for all his protestations of financial woes -- managed to afford to do what the rest of us would love to do: buy a little cabin in the woods, fix 'er up, and live the country life, watching the sun set. Sounds wonderful to me and more power to Katz for managing it.

The heart and soul of the book was lacking for me. It wasn't emotional enough. He outlined his concerns regarding his career, marriage and daughter, the changes in the lives of his friends, the lack of acceptance in our society for men who work at home while the wife does the nine-to-five dance, but he laid them out as simple facts. The emotional turmoil and confusion associated with mid-life re-evaluations (I'm in denial about having a "crisis") is not there.

His relationships with the locals was interesting and his observations of Thomas Merton and his writings were excellent.

For all of us who dream of escape, here's one for us! Just fill in the emotional blanks to suit yourself.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Distance from "everyday" - necessary for discernment?, August 23, 2000

By 

Gregory D. Cusack (Bellevue, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure (Paperback)

Perhaps it helps to be a "fifty-something" person, for by this time in one's life you start to seriously evaluate where you want to go in the (shortening) time left, and one of the ways you do this is to sift through your life's adventures so far. Jon Katz heeds a "call" to get away (not so much from "urban life" as from the "routine" of life). While each person must find his or her own way (and some are admittedly far more adept at others at gaining meaningful perspective throughout their lives), what Jon Katz did resonated with me. It really is important to take some "time out", to give yourself a chance to see yourself anew, to remember/recall the dreams you once had and to wonder why you have achieved some, failed at others, and given up on still others. Connecting with nature is another reminder, too, that we are all inter-connected (this perspective seems particularly acute when one is both young and old, but harder to maintain in one's "middle years" when scrabbling for career paths and building a family take up so much time). This book lets us share Mr. Katz's adventure and, in so doing, gives us encouragement to do something similar in our own manner. It IS good to remember that we really are on a sacred journey. It is never too late to readjust the course.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNEXPECTED TREAT, August 24, 2003

By 

Melinda P. Alvord (fallbrook, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure (Paperback)

I first read A Dog Year (because I have a Border Collie too) and really enjoyed Jon Katz style....so I ordered Running to the Mountain not knowing what to expect. I was more than entertained, enlightened and even "introspected" (if that's a word). I just wish I had read it first, before A Dog Year, as I would have appreciated all the references and time spent at the cabin with the dogs. Can't wait to read his latest.