Hannah and the Mountain: Notes Toward a Wilderness Fatherhood

By Jonathan Johnson

Book Overview

Longing for a home in big, wild country that would keep them passionate and young, Jonathan Johnson and his wife, Amy, set out to build a log cabin on his family's land in a remote and beautiful corner of Idaho. But what began as a doable dream for the two of them suddenly looks quite different when, on their first morning in the cabin--without electricity, a telephone, running water, or real windows--the couple learn that Amy is pregnant. In this lyrical and intimate chronicle of making a home the hard way, Johnson describes the competing joys and anxieties of preparing for fatherhood in a setting as challenging as it is promising: a paradise of mythic snowfalls and warming wood stoves and elk tracks at the front door, but also a place where vision, and even struggle and compromise, are not always enough. Hannah and the Mountain tells a rare and delicate story of two people exploring the unmapped territories of loss and grief and finding solace and grace in the mountains. It offers the reader an unforgettable portrait of a couple growing up, learning nature's hard and beautiful lessons, and discovering a love of place and each other strong and wild enough to renew them and be carried into the future

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803226012
• ISBN13: 9780803226012
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 225 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Hannah and her legacy

I loved the book. I cried all the way through. This is a great description of what can happen in any pregnancy. Each baby is a gift. Johnathan, keep writing! Margaret M. Bowden

Better Person After Reading This

Hannah is a wise book written by a man with a huge heart. I love how the cabin-building provides a framework, always something to fall back on when loss otherwise wants to swamp me. I love the honest voice describing people who love each other enough to risk anger and fighting. I love how there are always elk or eagles, mud, a river, a runoff--how grounded the book is in the created world. I hunger for that & Jonathan Johnson feeds it to me. I myself am a better person with more to give when I finish this book.

Jonathan Johnson: upinmichigan.org review

Jonathan Johnson, Hannah and the Mountain reviewed by Jacob Powers It is difficult to find a text that gives balance between nature and family. Granted, each genre holds its own, but to find a book that discusses both the love of the wilderness and the love of family is rare. Fortunately Jonathan Johnson, with his memoir Hannah and the Mountain, has successfully done just that. Johnson's narrative at first focuses on his goal to renovate a cabin owned by his extended family for over forty years for him and his wife, Amy, in the Idaho wilderness: "[We] came to the mountains because our adult lives were rushing toward us and we wanted to go out and meet those lives in a place that would keep us young and free and filled with passion. After years of school we were ready to settle into the long story of home." This feeling of home quickly takes a step forward when Jonathan and Amy discover that she is pregnant with their first child. Now, with the combination of extensive renovations and the limited amounts of resources to do so, the intent to form a home suitable to raise his future child in quickly takes off. Yet Johnson does it all in hope-hope that his firstborn will experience the beauty and awe of the wilderness that he and his wife adore. Tragedy, however, ensues as the memoir (which reads a lot like a novel) quickly disintegrates from its optimistic dreams into the harsh realities of a complicated pregnancy. The baby is carried too low, putting pressure on and stretching the lower uterus, threatening a premature birth: "Amy'd been having pains low in her abdomen all along...the hope was that the pains were the result of these problems, not the contractions that could be causing the problems." Yet all hope is not lost as Johnson guides the reader through his and his wife's pains and grief towards a strong anticipation that they will be able to tame their dreams again: "We've got our little cabin on land I've come to think of as an extension of my own body...that will be more than enough for Amy and me to build a life on. I will not create sorrows in a life where sorrows find me on their own." While most of the themes and settings in the book take place Idaho, many are reflective of Michigan's landscape as well. Johnson writes of Marquette where both he and Amy grew up several times throughout. There are also moments where he and his wife consider where they would rather have the baby-in their own formed home in the Idaho wilderness, or back in Marquette where their parents and past lives are. But what stands out the most is Johnson's connection with a past friend and writer, Mac, who experiences the death of his sixteen year old son when he died in an accident on the icy roads just outside of Marquette. It is in this moment of the book where Johnson connects his own experiences of a possible future father with the tragic loss that Mac experiences: "Odds are that being a father will forever be like walking on the thick crust on to

The evocative prose of a poet

Jonathan Johnston writes with the evocative prose of a poet. He tells the story of his path toward fatherhood and toward the fulfillment of his childhood dream of building his family's cabin home in the mountains of Idaho. He does so with passion and care. The reader sees clearly the autumn twilight as it fills the fields and sees the full moonlight come spilling through the windows of the cabin. On these beautifully written pages the reader learns of the profound love Johathan and his wife Amy share. It is a book I shall love giving so others might come to know this incredible author.

Beautiful, Insightful, Moving Memoir

I am a former student of Jonathan's...in fact, I am one of the students who sat on the lawns of the Western PA College during his Nature in Lit class that he mentions in the book. That was six years ago and I have been a fan of his work ever since. This memoir is beautifuly crafted as only a poet-turned-prose writer could do. He weaves the story of building his home, following his dreams, and starting a family in a touching and compelling fashion. The reader relates to the joy and hope of the young couple and feel their pain in times of trouble. This is not a memoir that serves to glorify the life of the author, but rather, it serves as a connection to each of us who are in pursuit of identity (be it individual or family or whatever else)and who are all on the journey through life. This is a beautiful work. I have never cried so hard over the pages of a book before. Johnson has been couragous and honest in his prose which makes it such an inspiring read.