My Father’s Cabin

In the Rust Belt of the 1960s, a blue-collar father works double shifts, chasing elusive dreams: a good night’s sleep, eternal life, a cabin in the Allegheny Mountains where he can hunt and fish. His son is a child of the times, chasing his own dreams: girls, long hair, politics, and independence. And both chase the same dream: each other’s elusive love. This is a familiar story uniquely told, in a voice that perfectly captures America at its most turbulent, an era that continues to define the largest generation in American history. My Father’s Cabin chronicles life in America as the Greatest Generation gives way to the Me Decade, as responsibility gives way to self-fulfillment-and then back again, as responsibility becomes self-fulfillment.

Mark Phillips grew up in Pendleton, in western New York. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Saturday Review, Country Life, and many other publications, and he is the recipient of a grant from the Vogelstein Foundation. Mark is also a beekeeper and occasional maple-syrup producer. He lives with his wife and children in Ischua, New York, in his father’s cabin.