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River House
An exquisite blend of memoir and nature writing, River House is one young woman's story about returning home. An exquisite blend of memoir and nature writing, River House is the story of a young woman returning home to her family’s ranch and building a log house with the help of her father. An avid river rafter, Sarahlee Lawrence grew up in remote central Oregon and, by the age of twenty-one, had rafted some of the most dangerous rivers of the world as an accomplished river guide. But living her dream led her back to the place she least expected―her dusty beginnings and her family’s home. River House is a beautiful story about a daughter’s return and her relationship with her father, whom she enlists to help brave the cold winter and build a log house by hand. Together, they work through the harsh winter, father helping daughter every step of the way.
- GenresMemoirNonfictionTravel
200 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
September 11, 2010
I had read about a hundred pages of this book before I actually met the woman who wrote it on the farm that is the book's main setting, outside of Terrebonne, OR. She is only a couple of years older than I am and all that she has accomplished (rafting all of the world's major rivers, taking over her family's ranch, erecting a log cabin with her own two hands, writing a book) gave me an inferiority complex. The entire time we talked to her about potentially coming to work on the farm she was moving around, picking and packing vegetables like there wasn't a second to spare. And for her, there's not.
The book's major theme is being split in two different directions, longing for travel while longing for home, and how she reconciles the two. Her father helps her build a log cabin on their property, just as her parents and grandparents have done. She struggles with her father as it becomes clear that he wants out of the farming life altogether just as she wants to dedicate herself to it. He smokes weed every day to cope with the stress of it; my disapproval of her disapproval of this may be a bit biased.
I enjoyed her language, though by the end I thought she had dipped into sentimentality one (or two or three...) too many times and that she had begun to beat her themes like a dead horse (the book does include a dead horse). She wonders repeatedly if she has grown up at all since X or Y. At the same time she is brutally honest about her own insecurities and there's something to be said for that. She cries a lot, which I can call sentimental but maybe it just makes me uncomfortable.
I thought the ending with her father was too abrupt and after having met the family they seem to have reached a resolution the book doesn't cover. But the book's opening is killer. You'll be very careful with a machete if you ever find yourself using one.
Overall Lawrence's civic awareness and work ethic put me to shame.
The book's major theme is being split in two different directions, longing for travel while longing for home, and how she reconciles the two. Her father helps her build a log cabin on their property, just as her parents and grandparents have done. She struggles with her father as it becomes clear that he wants out of the farming life altogether just as she wants to dedicate herself to it. He smokes weed every day to cope with the stress of it; my disapproval of her disapproval of this may be a bit biased.
I enjoyed her language, though by the end I thought she had dipped into sentimentality one (or two or three...) too many times and that she had begun to beat her themes like a dead horse (the book does include a dead horse). She wonders repeatedly if she has grown up at all since X or Y. At the same time she is brutally honest about her own insecurities and there's something to be said for that. She cries a lot, which I can call sentimental but maybe it just makes me uncomfortable.
I thought the ending with her father was too abrupt and after having met the family they seem to have reached a resolution the book doesn't cover. But the book's opening is killer. You'll be very careful with a machete if you ever find yourself using one.
Overall Lawrence's civic awareness and work ethic put me to shame.
December 13, 2012
An eloquently told story of the desires and dreams of a daughter and father. Their passions align and stray to weave multiple tales of adventure, family, and home. Dynamic personalities of those involved carry the story, and at the end leave you wondering 'What happened next?' This book is recommended for anyone that suffers from "the grass is greener on the other side" syndrome, love adventure (kayaking/surfing/rafting), or those who have the desire to pour their soul into a major project (building a log house). Every once in a while, there is a book that hits you in the right spot, and for me this one was right on target.
July 4, 2011
If I was Sarahlee Lawrence's mother, I'd be scared every time she left the house, but her mother is not afraid. Her philosophy of child rearing is that raising a child is like shooting an arrow into the air. You teach the child and then you let them go to find their passions. This young woman and first time author has done much to admire. She is/was a professional river runner, she built her own log home (with help from her parents, but it was her design, her money, her doing and mostly her work). She can run her parent's ranch in Central Oregon. She has an MS in Environmental Science and Writing and she owns and operates her own organic garden. This book is a memoir of her life and how she interacts with her parents (not always an easy task since her dad is a stoner who has to leave to find his own dreams) and how she follows her dreams.
November 1, 2010
If you like books that go into the life of a person, the good and bad, you will enjoy this book. Sarahlee writes on how the childhood farm was pulling her back home to live and build a place of her own. She would have to leave because of her other love, running the rivers of the world but when she was gone the desert land of Central Oregon was where she wanted to be. I enjoyed this book and it is an easy read.
January 29, 2011
This book was not what I expected from the synopsis. I think I expected more of a coming of age book and more about her development of an adult relationship with her Dad. That was there, but it was not developed to an extent that felt satisfying to me. Especially at the end. I liked her writing and hearing about her adventures. I look forward to her next book which I'm sure will be more mature.
April 8, 2011
I'd normally scoff at the idea of a memoir of a 20-something; how much can one have to say? But this memoir reads like a modern coming of age novel in an era when most of us enter adulthood in our twenties. A thoroughly contemporary young woman returns from some grand adventures and sets herself a pioneer-esque task of building a log cabin on her family's farm. Its beautifully written and left me longing to hear what she and her parents are up to now.
November 28, 2010
I enjoyed this book. It could be listed under travel, rafting, or adventure. I enjoyed it because I live in Oregon and I learned a lot about a part of the state that I knew little about before.
The reading pace is quick, easily held my attention. I'm glad I read it.
The reading pace is quick, easily held my attention. I'm glad I read it.
January 2, 2013
I read this a while ago and wrote a brilliant review just as Goodreads was experiencing problems, so the review was lost. Somehow I haven’t been up to writing reviews since then. Now I am trying to catch up and just don’t seem to have the same heart. Well, maybe it wasn’t truly a brilliant review but then again, all lost reviews may be brilliant.
The author was raised on a ranch in eastern Oregon with a tough but genteel mother and a tough, hippie father. After college she receives a fellowship to pursue a non-academic year and choses to travel the world running white-water rivers. After this year she returns home to eastern Oregon and builds a log house on the family property.
I enjoyed the story of the house. This is one macho lady and she insists on doing all the work herself with her father’s help (evoking memories of our life in northern Idaho!) At times her self sufficiency and macho image is a bit hard to take, but I could still relate. The true beauty of the house building project is the relationship that builds between father and daughter. Sadly, the father begins to regress into a world of his own. It is not dementia or Alzheimers, but more like he allows his unrealized dreams to take over his soul. The book ends with much unresolved – it is a memoir after all, not fiction. I appreciate endings like this and I thought about the story for days and weeks.
The author was raised on a ranch in eastern Oregon with a tough but genteel mother and a tough, hippie father. After college she receives a fellowship to pursue a non-academic year and choses to travel the world running white-water rivers. After this year she returns home to eastern Oregon and builds a log house on the family property.
I enjoyed the story of the house. This is one macho lady and she insists on doing all the work herself with her father’s help (evoking memories of our life in northern Idaho!) At times her self sufficiency and macho image is a bit hard to take, but I could still relate. The true beauty of the house building project is the relationship that builds between father and daughter. Sadly, the father begins to regress into a world of his own. It is not dementia or Alzheimers, but more like he allows his unrealized dreams to take over his soul. The book ends with much unresolved – it is a memoir after all, not fiction. I appreciate endings like this and I thought about the story for days and weeks.
April 3, 2019
"River House" is the searchingly honest, foursquare memoir of a young woman struck with an unconventional dream: After college and years of world travel, Sarahlee Lawrence decides she wants to build her own log house on the high desert ranch in central Oregon where she was raised.
This is nonfiction, but Lawrence's life provided her the material of a classic, woman-vs.-nature drama that makes this a transfixing read. Even if the closest you've ever come to building a house involved the use of Lincoln Logs, you'll be taken in by River House.
There's a daunting task ahead of Lawrence: building a log house with minimal equipment and the help of only her father, with just a frigid winter's worth of time to complete the bulk of the project before she has to return to work as a river guide. The story largely revolves around the elemental triad of mother, father, and child as Lawrence pushes the three of them through this job she's set for herself.
Lawrence's father is a fascinating figure, a pot-smoking surf-obsessed hippie from California who fell in love with a ranch girl from Oregon, Lawrence's mom. For twenty-eight years, he buckled down to the tough work of hay farming ("Mom's dream," as Lawrence often describes it), but he longs for the ocean. Lawrence loves him madly, and although she's independent, with a full complement of mechanical, agricultural, and carpentry skills, in the task of building her house she depends on her father almost to his breaking point.
In her early twenties, Lawrence surprised herself with a powerful urge to return home while she was in the middle of a yearlong river exploration adventure that she'd won a fellowship to complete. The book opens in Cusco, Peru, where she has agreed to run a river with an Italian kayaker she barely knows. In a suspenseful passage, she questions the wisdom of her decision after she finds herself alone in raging rapids in the jungle. At night in her tent, Lawrence reads the copy of Thoreau's Walden that her mother sent, and dreams of home:
"For the previous four years, I'd been in one river canyon after another, and I'd finally hit some kind of claustrophobia. I was homesick for Oregon and for my family's farm. I wanted the sky that my dad worked against like a red ant, where we watched storms build for hours and flood east over the mountains before swinging north over the fields of fresh-cut hay. It was more than open land that I suddenly craved: I wanted to interact with more of nature's elements than just water. I wanted to get my hands in the earth. I also missed my father and felt remorseful that I'd left him to farm alone."
Although Lawrence completes her proposed course of river exploration during the fellowship period, she resolves to return home, even though in doing so she becomes one of the only people of her generation to choose to farm the area where she grew up. Lawrence sees the land around Terrebonne, Oregon encroached by the development in Bend, with new light pollution, demands on limited water supply, and million-dollar homes in view. Lawrence has picked a tough, lonely course for herself and she questions her decision: "I wondered if I would miss the chemistry of that fling with the river. I felt crazy for leaving something so good, but I guess it was like any fling. I just couldn't imagine it being enough to sustain me forever. And though I loved to play, I'd been missing real work, in a real place, with real people who work the land."
Lawrence falls to real work in earnest, on the at-times-Sisyphean task of building herself a log home as her back-to-the-lander mother did before her. She still makes a living leading river trips, so she must complete the building during the punishing winter months. Despite challenges and setbacks, and her dad's advice, "only fools make dreams with dates," she's determined to finish her house, and to do it in a way that she thinks is the proper one. For example, she decides to dig the hole for her foundation by hand rather than rent a backhoe, "I just wanted to be in my space, getting the job done as I could do it with my own body," she writes.
Lawrence's mother is busy at work in town, but helps her with advice on building. When she finds out Sarahlee hasn't even glanced at the book about log home building she provided, she says, "You're so experiential, Sarah. You just extrapolate from your available knowledge how to get what you want... That's how you've always been, but this is your house, she said with an emphasis on house."
With the help of her father, Lawrence pours the foundation and begins the painstaking process of building the walls of her home. She was raised to do everything herself, and obeys her training almost to a fault. She writes of her father, "When I was a child, my dad did not hold my hand or protect me from small dangers. He let me fall and he let me pull myself back up, brushing the dirt off myself. And she writes of her mother, "Her philosophy on mothering was one of release: a bow that shoots an arrow into the world." But when Lawrence realizes she needs help, she's willing to ask her neighbors, and in doing so forges a bond with them that her "almost exotic" father never developed. "Between the wretched weather and the travails of my building project, I had the ticket to knowing my neighbors, mostly because I lacked ego completely and was willing to ask for help."
Although Lawrence relishes the time with her father that building the house provides, he becomes increasingly dissatisfied with life on the ranch as they labor, and his pot-fueled ideas turn wild and focused on an escape to Mexico's beaches. At the same time Lawrence commits to returning to the land, her father determines to leave. This story of a daughter's love for her complicated father is poignant and refreshing, and the prose has the beauty of apt simplicity.
The end of River House leaves a reader begging for a sequel.What happened to Sarahlee's father? How is it working out as she fashions a life that is true to her convictions? Lawrence's bio notes that she currently operates an organic vegetable farm.One can only hope she's taking notes on this experience, preparing for a follow-up to this satisfying, unusual memoir.
This is nonfiction, but Lawrence's life provided her the material of a classic, woman-vs.-nature drama that makes this a transfixing read. Even if the closest you've ever come to building a house involved the use of Lincoln Logs, you'll be taken in by River House.
There's a daunting task ahead of Lawrence: building a log house with minimal equipment and the help of only her father, with just a frigid winter's worth of time to complete the bulk of the project before she has to return to work as a river guide. The story largely revolves around the elemental triad of mother, father, and child as Lawrence pushes the three of them through this job she's set for herself.
Lawrence's father is a fascinating figure, a pot-smoking surf-obsessed hippie from California who fell in love with a ranch girl from Oregon, Lawrence's mom. For twenty-eight years, he buckled down to the tough work of hay farming ("Mom's dream," as Lawrence often describes it), but he longs for the ocean. Lawrence loves him madly, and although she's independent, with a full complement of mechanical, agricultural, and carpentry skills, in the task of building her house she depends on her father almost to his breaking point.
In her early twenties, Lawrence surprised herself with a powerful urge to return home while she was in the middle of a yearlong river exploration adventure that she'd won a fellowship to complete. The book opens in Cusco, Peru, where she has agreed to run a river with an Italian kayaker she barely knows. In a suspenseful passage, she questions the wisdom of her decision after she finds herself alone in raging rapids in the jungle. At night in her tent, Lawrence reads the copy of Thoreau's Walden that her mother sent, and dreams of home:
"For the previous four years, I'd been in one river canyon after another, and I'd finally hit some kind of claustrophobia. I was homesick for Oregon and for my family's farm. I wanted the sky that my dad worked against like a red ant, where we watched storms build for hours and flood east over the mountains before swinging north over the fields of fresh-cut hay. It was more than open land that I suddenly craved: I wanted to interact with more of nature's elements than just water. I wanted to get my hands in the earth. I also missed my father and felt remorseful that I'd left him to farm alone."
Although Lawrence completes her proposed course of river exploration during the fellowship period, she resolves to return home, even though in doing so she becomes one of the only people of her generation to choose to farm the area where she grew up. Lawrence sees the land around Terrebonne, Oregon encroached by the development in Bend, with new light pollution, demands on limited water supply, and million-dollar homes in view. Lawrence has picked a tough, lonely course for herself and she questions her decision: "I wondered if I would miss the chemistry of that fling with the river. I felt crazy for leaving something so good, but I guess it was like any fling. I just couldn't imagine it being enough to sustain me forever. And though I loved to play, I'd been missing real work, in a real place, with real people who work the land."
Lawrence falls to real work in earnest, on the at-times-Sisyphean task of building herself a log home as her back-to-the-lander mother did before her. She still makes a living leading river trips, so she must complete the building during the punishing winter months. Despite challenges and setbacks, and her dad's advice, "only fools make dreams with dates," she's determined to finish her house, and to do it in a way that she thinks is the proper one. For example, she decides to dig the hole for her foundation by hand rather than rent a backhoe, "I just wanted to be in my space, getting the job done as I could do it with my own body," she writes.
Lawrence's mother is busy at work in town, but helps her with advice on building. When she finds out Sarahlee hasn't even glanced at the book about log home building she provided, she says, "You're so experiential, Sarah. You just extrapolate from your available knowledge how to get what you want... That's how you've always been, but this is your house, she said with an emphasis on house."
With the help of her father, Lawrence pours the foundation and begins the painstaking process of building the walls of her home. She was raised to do everything herself, and obeys her training almost to a fault. She writes of her father, "When I was a child, my dad did not hold my hand or protect me from small dangers. He let me fall and he let me pull myself back up, brushing the dirt off myself. And she writes of her mother, "Her philosophy on mothering was one of release: a bow that shoots an arrow into the world." But when Lawrence realizes she needs help, she's willing to ask her neighbors, and in doing so forges a bond with them that her "almost exotic" father never developed. "Between the wretched weather and the travails of my building project, I had the ticket to knowing my neighbors, mostly because I lacked ego completely and was willing to ask for help."
Although Lawrence relishes the time with her father that building the house provides, he becomes increasingly dissatisfied with life on the ranch as they labor, and his pot-fueled ideas turn wild and focused on an escape to Mexico's beaches. At the same time Lawrence commits to returning to the land, her father determines to leave. This story of a daughter's love for her complicated father is poignant and refreshing, and the prose has the beauty of apt simplicity.
The end of River House leaves a reader begging for a sequel.What happened to Sarahlee's father? How is it working out as she fashions a life that is true to her convictions? Lawrence's bio notes that she currently operates an organic vegetable farm.One can only hope she's taking notes on this experience, preparing for a follow-up to this satisfying, unusual memoir.
May 10, 2010
"River House is about rediscovering family and working through the compromises involved in finding your life, the people and days you actually love. It’s tough, smart and eloquently told, a dead on beauty. Enjoy. I surely did."
—William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Willow Field
"Log by log, and word by word, Lawrence locates her love and affirms her commitment to her parents, her place, and the natural world. If you love wild water and land, if you value hard work and family, this is the book not to miss."
—Phil Condon, author of Clay Center
"In River House, Saralee Lawrence tells a story as carefully hewn and crafted, as lovingly rendered, as the log cabin she and her father have built together in the high desert of central Oregon. It’s a story of roots; the pull of the land that calls her back to the heart of her family farm. And it’s the story of wings, the journey of a father and a daughter each coming to terms with a dream."
—Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean
—William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Willow Field
"Log by log, and word by word, Lawrence locates her love and affirms her commitment to her parents, her place, and the natural world. If you love wild water and land, if you value hard work and family, this is the book not to miss."
—Phil Condon, author of Clay Center
"In River House, Saralee Lawrence tells a story as carefully hewn and crafted, as lovingly rendered, as the log cabin she and her father have built together in the high desert of central Oregon. It’s a story of roots; the pull of the land that calls her back to the heart of her family farm. And it’s the story of wings, the journey of a father and a daughter each coming to terms with a dream."
—Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean
January 14, 2011
This is one of the best memoirs that I have read in a long time. The author has a very simple story to tell, and she does a good job of giving the reader enough information to understand that story, without weighing it down with tangents. A second standout feature of this book is the raw emotions of the author, which she conveys indirectly (by stepping outside of her self and functioning as a narrator rather than as an "I") rather than so bluntly. And it is refreshingly honest -- the author doesn't pretend that she's perfect, or judge in hindsight. Overall, a standout book from a new Oregon author.
November 30, 2011
There were parts that were riveting but some of the more technical subjects (rafting, loghome building, machinery fixing) had me a bit glazed over. The book was not at all like I expected, and books that are fathery/daughter relationship focused always kind have me screaming "what about your mom?!? She seems nice!!" I really did like it, though. Lawrence is a great writer but at times it was so obsessive to the theme it felt forced.
December 23, 2011
Oh my Miss Sarahless! Your book isn't about running rivers, it's about you making your father into more than we care for him to be. I'm glad your unhappy poppa is a sage in cowboy boots hidden in a cloud of marijuana smoke, but you can't mention that every 10 pages and expect someone who doesn't know him to keep on with your story. Oh Saralee, I grew weary of your story. I hope you built your house. Love, Kim
June 1, 2011
Beautiful memoir. Very focused on a particular area of her life. It left me with a lot of questions, but I appreciated that she stayed on track.
June 1, 2015
~ From Walden quoted in the book, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach."
August 30, 2022
Not what I was expecting -- maybe a little too raw and honest and brutal, maybe a little too sad for my tastes, in my comfortable unchallenging life. I admire how Lawrence and her family exist in a harsh land, with harsh acceptance for what can't be changed. I am astonished at the obsession with water (rivers for Sarah and the ocean for her dad) and how they single-mindedly pursue time to chase those needs. I appreciate how desperately unromantic this book is about building a log cabin -- it sounds terrifying and all consuming and very, very hard. I can't say that I found it an enjoyable read. I guess a descent into madness and a dissolution of family is not an enjoyable subject, but it is extraordinarily honest.
Read
December 30, 2022By her early 20's the author has accomplished enough to justify writing a memoir, the story of her transition from worldly river runner and guide to life on the small family ranch where she grew up in central Oregon. Working alongside her burnt-out weed-addicted father, she builds a log cabin home during the winter, and learns to rely on neighbors in ways her father could never manage. Her father struggles to free himself from the ranch, departing for Mexico and the ocean and surfing life of his younger years. His departure comes just at the time she commits to stay to run the ranch. The ending is unsatisfying; it glosses over how her father's decision to leave turns out, but I guess those chapters are still to be written.
January 3, 2019
I read this book after reading a review of it in the Oregonian. The memoir is that of a young lady who, after having a life of “running white water “ throughout the world returns to her home near Terrebonne, Oregon where she embarks on a project with her father to build a house on property he and her mother own. The fact that her father is a former surfer still afflicted by the addiction to the waves, although very distant in time and geography, was fascinating and perhaps overpowering.
November 3, 2024
There's no place like home. That's the theme of this book where the author leaves home after high school and becomes a river guide, which was at times a very dangerous job. But she decided to come home and build a house of her own on her parents' ranch. I thought the details of building the house were a little long and I didn't always understand construction talk, but the rest was fairly interesting, especially her relationship with her father, who helped build the house.
June 15, 2021
This book is called a memoir, but it is really a story about building a house on family property. My family left farming and ranching two generations ago, and none of us have gone back. It is a hard life, uncertain and demanding. Very informative about conditions in Central Oregon, where my brother lives now. A good book for hopeful would-be farmers to read.
July 9, 2018
I thought it was a really good memoir. The book is a coming to age story about really fining balance in life. The beginning os fantastic. I hope she rights more about her riving running adventures and life on the river. Over good book...4 Stars.
February 1, 2019
One of the most gripping memoirs I have ever read! It does drag towards the end but Lawrence is a concise and engaging writer. I'd love to read more of her work if possible. Highly, highly recommend. It was a random find at my library.
May 12, 2020
The story of a woman figuring out how to balance a love of place (her family's ranch) with wanderlust, a love of the high desert and of wild rivers. Very poignant for those of us who have similar feelings, at least about love of place and wanderlust.
September 11, 2017
Didn't work well for me but maybe it will grow on me.
October 31, 2017
Adventurous memoir about hard work, family, and wild water. I loved some of it, but some of it felt tedious. Ultimately, was inspired and impressed!!
December 7, 2017
not very good river rapid guide builds own home in Oregon
May 9, 2018
I enjoyed the book for the most part. It was a bit choppy and the ending was very abrupt. You will learn a lot about living on the land and I appreciate her detail about it.
March 23, 2019
fun book to read was inspired to build something on my own like a cabin or greenhouse!
December 28, 2019
DNF whiny and self-righteous.
June 27, 2020
4.5 rounded up. I think the fact that I live in Central Oregon helps. But also I loved her dad. I saw a lot of Kevin in him...maybe for that reason, I wanted more from the ending...
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