A Stone Bridge North: Reflections in a New Life [Hardcover]

Kate Maloy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

A middle-aged woman with a teenage son rediscovers her Quaker faith, and quits her urban life for a homestead in the woods of Vermont. . "I lived a straight-edged life, a cubist arrangement of familiar rectangles: office, computer screen, paycheck, city blocks, mortgage, calendar pages, television screen. These were more confining than I knew. Most confining of all, for most of those years, was the four-square house I occupied like a resentful ghost through half my marriage...I am no longer a ghost in my life. " --from the Prologue A Stone Bridge North is the author's own story of "miracles found and fears allayed" in the journey out of a confining urban existence and into a simpler, more joyous life. To tell this story fully, she must look through changed eyes at her past-at childhood anxieties, family disaffections, failed marriages, late motherhood, restless boredom, and, paradoxically, a native talent for joy. She learns that she has been guided by faith even when she thought she had none. She begins to discern purpose and design both in her stories and in the light by which she sees them-a light refracted through a Quaker lens that searches for the sacred in all people. As the four seasons turn, she celebrates the loves of her new life-family, friends, language, silence, and the extraordinary landscape of Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her mid-50s, writer Maloy moved from Pittsburgh to northern Vermont, leaving behind her "right-angled, urban existence" (a couple of failed marriages and an uninspiring career as a freelance writer). With her son and her new lover, she set out to build a new home and a new life. The "radical simplicity" of rural Vermont, the taciturnity of her mate and closeness with nature's rhythms all helped Maloy focus. A practicing Quaker even before her move, her "Inner Light" became the compass for her journey for meaning. Through the lens of her deeply felt Quaker faith, she examines past loves, failed friendships, child-rearing problems, the delights of her new soul mate and even global issues like democracy and war. And just as Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, stepped out over an abyss and was saved by a rock-solid optical illusion of a stone bridge, Maloy trusts her own stone bridge faith which "equalizes, connects, provides access." As she concludes, "The more we love, the less we fear," and the "less we fear, the more perfect our freedom becomes, and the more we can extend that freedom to others." Readers unfamiliar with Quaker philosophy and history will find ample explanation here, although the rhetoric can sound preachy at times. Still, Maloy is courageous in her willingness to accept failure and imperfection as part of the process. Her insistence on leading an examined life is powerful, especially in the morally difficult times we now face. (Feb. 1)Forecast: Maloy may not attract a wide readership, but hand-selling to book buyers with a spiritual quest will be effective.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Maloy moved at least a dozen times during her childhood, and when she grew up, the urge to see what lay beyond the horizon kept her on the move. Now settled into a new, simpler life in rural Vermont, she recounts the journey that brought her there, one full of childhood traumas, family conflicts, failed marriages, shaky friendships, late motherhood, and always the sense of searching for something. The restlessness and curiosity of searching permeates the book as Maloy traces the development of her new self. She begins to see, if not a pattern, at least some purpose and design, grand or otherwise, in her life. Trying to understand her nature, she connects with the bigger human picture. Settling in a new state, she creates a new state of being. She relies on the big themes--love, God, friendship, family, motherhood, nature, risk, silence, imagination--to propel her story, but she also concentrates on the details that led her, much to her surprise, to discover a faith, once doubtful, that eventually brings everything together. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 313 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press; First Edition edition (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582431450
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431451
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,786,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Kate Maloy's ex-husband. Here's my recommendation., January 10, 2003

By 

Preston Covey (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Stone Bridge North: Reflections in a New Life (Hardcover)

I'm Kate Maloy's ex-husband. She speaks about me in her good book, A Stone Bridge North, anonymously, because she was considerate enough to try to protect the guilty.

Because I figure in her book, but not in especially complementary terms, I figure that potential buyers or readers of her book might be interested in my take on it.

It's a captivating story of emotional venture and spiritual adventure, with author-centered but gifted, exquisite reflections on the meaning of the struggle - in terms with which anyone can empathize - to enrich a life, a marriage, a sense of self, one's soul.

It's also a guarranteed page-turner, a compelling story of the roles of reflective struggle and the mystery of grace in amazing turns of life.

The story of how Kate found the wonderful man who became her soul-mate and new husband is, simply, amazing by any standard.

Any person who ever wondered how - by concerted effort or by gentle grace - life can, indeed, take magnificent turns needs to read this book. And take heart.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serenity Earned Every Day, January 24, 2003

By 

G. Hyduke (Fair Haven, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stone Bridge North: Reflections in a New Life (Hardcover)

I'm not a Quaker and I've never attended a Meeting. Although I consider any religion that calls its practitioners Friends a step in the right direction, my motivations in reading SBN were strictly secular. I was first drawn to the book because I have enormous respect for the publisher. The cover also spoke to me. The simplicity and purity of it. A single stand of snow covered trees. And I've always been intrigued by bridges as metaphors, so the title was perfect. There's no doubt that SBN is a book of the spirit in the sense that it's a look at the effects of Quakerism in the writer's life. And this is a strong theme of the book. To say otherwise would be misleading and disingenuous. But the book is so much more than that, too generous with its reach, too honest in its outpouring of contemplations, too bighearted and open-minded to be pigeonholed as a theological dogmatic text. It is indeed a soulful book, but it offers its deep solitude, silence and solace to all. For some unknown reason I dipped into the book haphazardly, rather than reading it linearly, which did not ruin the experience for me. Covering a rapid and transitional year in her life, it alternates between journal-type entries and short and long meditations on all things human: emotions, food, television, our education system, everyday life, and even the internet, which becomes another form of metaphysical uplifting for the author. It turns out she's met her new husband on the web. Some of their communications back and forth, via re-mail, are included in the book. That atypical love story is just one of the truly fine, honest - and surprising - things that the author reflects on. They all conjoin into the story of a lifechange. An intelligent, quietly passionate, appealing, and insightful story of the process of continuing to make oneself a better person through faith in life and in each other.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Is What Happens While We're Making Other Plans, February 14, 2002

By 

Juana Olga Barrios "Be The Change" (Venice, Baja, Panama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stone Bridge North: Reflections in a New Life (Hardcover)

Several summers ago, while writing my Master's thesis on the trappings and workings of memory, I stumbled, quite ecstatically, into A Stone Bridge North, through a link on a website for James Hillman. I downloaded the author's self published offering and stepped into her magical and enchanting story. I use the words magical and enchanting not in a literay way, in order to suggest magical realism, but rather because I was so moved and captivated by the depths of her honesty and her insight into the capriciousness of life. The story is evocative and gently provocative, beautifully written and ultimately very inspiring to those of us who dream of leaving the cacophony of urban living ideally, although not necessarily, hand in hand with the unexpected guardian of our soul. Her story is inspiring, enlivening and ultimately a place I often find myself wandering around, two years after squinting at my computer screen, unable and unwilling to leave the author, her friends and family behind. Give this book to anyone you know who is tending to dreams of a simpler and more meaningful way of living, without sacrificing the erotics of life, in the name of the only life we have to live.