by May Sarton
First published 1968
Miss Pickthorn has settled into quiet retirement, spending her days working on translations of Horace's poetry. Her orderly world shifts when a drifter arrives and makes himself at home in the henhouse on her property. The unlikely pair must navigate the boundaries between solitude and companionship as their lives become unexpectedly intertwined. What begins as an intrusion becomes something more complex, challenging both the scholarly woman and the wandering man to reconsider what home and human connection mean. Sarton crafts a story about two people on society's margins who discover that even the most careful boundaries can become bridges.
Genres: fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unlikely-companions
Period: 20th-Century
81 pages · Hardcover · Dent