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Notes from Nethers:
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About the Book"...a riveting, evocative documentary of a time and a place—and its effect on a life—that might be that rare thing, a story that could have been told by no one else. I love this book" —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of Still Summer "In this probing, intimate memoir, Eugster recounts the challenges of growing up in an environment where the margin between freedom and endangerment is slim...But Eugster, now a psychologist, also writes with deep tenderness about her family, the skills and strength she gained from her exceptional youth, and the shifting relationship between parents and maturing children...this is a fascinating, evenhanded view of counter culture life in the 1970s." —Booklist This is a unique and honest account of the author’s childhood growing up in a commune in rural Virginia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nethers, as the commune came to be called, was started by Eugster’s “liberal, radical, union organizing mother,” Carla. Committed to radical social change and caught up in the fervor of counterculture, Carla, separated from the father of her three children, unilaterally sold their middle-class house in Baltimore, and moved to a rural area, 3 1⁄2 hours away. They moved in 1969, when Eugster was 9 years old. The culture shock was difficult for Eugster’s two older sisters, but for the 9-year-old Eugster it was especially confusing and frightening. She recounts the difficult transition from a traditional family life to one in a communal setting. Eventually, Carla was able to buy a large farmhouse with acres of land around it, and this became the commune. In order to sustain themselves, Carla and her growing entourage of Nertherites decided to start up an experimental school. Carla was a tireless promoter, running ads in the New York Review of Books and Mother Earth News, keeping up correspondence with people interested in her mission. An array of colorful characters drifted into the commune, and Eugster writes sensitively about being a child in the midst of all this. She accurately depicts communal living in all its complexity, describing weekly consensus meetings, days of silence, and quarterly sweat-hut rituals. This is essentially the dramatic story of a young girl given complete freedom in a communal setting, which at many times felt to her like abandonment. Notes from Nethers is a riveting look at a time and place long gone. It is an important piece of American cultural history, and the history of efforts to create a utopian society, underscoring the fact that no matter how ideally a societal structure is conceived, its enactment cannot escape the imperfections of humans who embody it. |
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