Hollow and Home: A History of Self and Place

by E. Fred Carlisle

Hollow and Home explores the ways the primary places in our lives shape the individuals we become. It proposes that place is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Place refers to geographical and constructed places—location, topography, landscape, and buildings. It also refers to the psychological, social, and cultural influences at work at a given location. These elements act in concert to constitute a place.
 
Carlisle incorporates perspectives from writers like Edward S. Casey, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Witold Rybczynski, but he applies theory with a light touch. Placing this literature in dialog with personal experience, he concentrates on two places that profoundly influenced him and enabled him to overcome a lifelong sense of always leaving his pasts behind. The first is Clover Hollow in Appalachian Virginia, where the author lived for ten years among fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-generation residents. The people and places there enabled him to value his own past and primary places in a new way. The story then turns to Carlisle’s life growing up in Delaware, Ohio. He describes in rich detail the ways the town shaped him in both enabling and disabling ways. In the end, after years of moving from place to place, Carlisle’s experience in Appalachia helped him rediscover his hometown—both the Old Delaware, where he grew up, and the New Delaware, a larger, thriving small city—as his true home.
 
The themes of the book transcend specific localities and speak to the relationship of self and place everywhere.
 

228 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2017

About the author

E. Fred Carlisle has been writing about identity and place for years. He is the author of four previous books—two memoirs, and studies of Walt Whitman and of Loren Eiseley. A former provost at Virginia Tech, he grew up in Ohio, enjoyed a long academic career, lived for a decade in the rural Virginia mountains, and now divides his time between Virginia and South Florida.

Reviews

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really repetitive. Argument not supported. Interesting insights at the beginning but not related to overall message. Bland. I think the author was just having some sort of existential crisis. I don’t believe there to be one right “place.” As long as you are fulfilled and inspired where you are, that can be enough.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is insightful in that it opens the readers eyes to what is meant by self and place. I found myself reminiscing about my life and all the places I have lived. My primal place is definitely what defines me however I have more connection to the place I created during childhood.
Read the book and make the connections. I truly think you will enjoy it.

[Kelly]

This is the sort of book I love. As an Air Force brat, I moved a fair bit before I turned 10. And I've never been afraid to up and move to a new place. But I have a strong sense of place, wanting to make my place my own, my home.
Me? Definitely a Southerner, with a capital S. Not a City Girl, for sure!
I've moved flowers from house to house, because they were heirlooms, from my grandmothers' yards. And mostly they have survived. But not all. I've lost the peony and the lily of the valley from my Nana McBride. Everyone's sense of place is executed in different ways.