Return to Gone-Away: Elizabeth Enright

Book: Return to Gone-Away
Author: Elizabeth Enright
Pages: 224
Age Range: 8-12 

Regular readers of this blog know that Elizabeth Enright is one of my favorite authors. My favorite of her novels, one of my all-time favorite books, is Return to Gone-Away. Return to Gone-Away is the sequel to Gone-Away Lake. The first book is nice, too. But the second one is magical. Charlotte mentioned Return to Gone-Away in a recent post as her "favorite summer holiday book", and inspired me to re-read it.

Return to Gone-Away is one of the ultimate "big, interesting, mysterious house" books of children's literature. As the story begins, 11 1/2 year-old Portia Blake and 7-year-old Foster learn that their parents have purchased Villa Caprice as a summer home. This Victorian mansion lies deep in the woods, close to Gone-Away Lake (a crumbling one-time resort near the home of Portia and Foster's cousin Julian). The house was once the summer showplace of the pretentious Mrs. Brace-Gideon, but has been boarded up for more than 50 years. The Blakes, with help from Julian's family and the two elderly residents of Gone-Away Lake (and a host of hired workers), spend the summer making the house habitable. In the process, they make lots of wonderful discoveries (from antique furniture to a shell collection to a dumbwaiter). Portia, Foster, and Julian also spend considerable time running around the woods with their friends, swimming in a quarry, and playing in the abandoned houses of Gone-Away Lake. I tell you, this book is a pitch-perfect portrait of a small-town, East Coast, 1950's summer.

As with Enright's other books, Return to Gone-Away is largely episodic. Days are spent doing this or that. Small adventures occur. While everything is framed around the Blake family's summer-long reclamation of Villa Caprice, there are plenty of tangents. Reading the book is, in fact, rather like spending a summer's day out of doors, reacting to whatever comes up. But it works, because Enright is skilled at creating characters who feel like real kids, and creating settings and incidents that kids will find interesting. Villa Caprice is fabulous. The run-down houses in Gone-Away are charming. Portia, Julian, and Foster are practically 3-dimensional (helped along by Beth and Joe Krush's timeless illustrations). And while their parents aren't conveyed in much detail, the two elderly residents of Gone-Away, Aunt Minnehaha and Uncle Pin, are wonderfully quirky. My favorite character is Foster. He likes to keep lots of interesting things in his pockets. He's noticed that feeling happy often makes him hungry. He feels betrayed by his intact front teeth (when his best friend's have fallen out). It is quite clear that Elizabeth Enright had real experience with young boys (she had three sons).

I'm not really objective, since I love this book so much. But I think that it holds up quite well for being 50+ years old. Swimming in a quarry is still cool. Spending the night in a creaky, abandoned house near a swamp is still scary. Younger brothers are still pests. It's all timeless. (Though with a few older expressions thrown in, like "Heavens!" and "Thank fortune!") There is, perhaps, a tiny bit more wish-fulfillment than you find in a children's book today (the family finds sufficient antiques in the house to pay for the needed repair, Uncle Pin remembers the old swimming hole on the hottest day of the year, etc.). But perhaps not. If you know any kids who like the Penderwicks books, you should absolutely try them on Return to Gone-Away (after reading Gone-Away Lake first, of course).

Here are a few of my favorite passages:

"He led the way. Portia skipped behind him along the narrow well-known path, and Julian, clanking faintly, brought up the rear. To the right lay the broad swamp, shorn by winter of its reeds; to the left stood the old houses in their neglected yards. They were a tatterdemalion lot, with shutters hanging from hinges, front steps skewed crooked, porches sagging: the Delaney house, the Vogelhart house, the Tuckertown house (where the children had a clubroom in the attic), and all the others, including the one that had ceased even to be a house. The Castle Castle, named for the family who had built it, had collapsed years before in a bad storm and lay now in a great heap of rubble, all scrawled over with a withered vine." (Chapter 2)

"The first one up, next morning, was Foster Blake. He had slept industriously for eleven hours and woke up all of a piece without any lingering or yawning." (Chapter 3)

"The fork-tailed birds, azure-blue in the sunlight, swooped and curved in and out of the tottering cupola that crowned the decaying mansion. They used the air as fishes use a river; they seemed to swing and spin effortlessly on invisible currents." (Chapter 8)

"When Foster started calling Julian at the top of his lungs, she hardly heard him, and when Julian told her he was going downstairs, she did not hear him, either. Sometimes a story can open a world for you: you step into it and forget the real one that you live in. Evidently this was such a story." (Chapter 9)

If that last quote doesn't make you want to read Return to Gone-Away, then I can't help you. This, as I said, is one of my favorite books of all-time. I can't recommend it highly enough. The Gone-Away books would make an excellent family read-aloud series, too, with interest for older and younger kids. If you've never read them, you are in for a treat.

Publisher: Sandpiper
Publication Date: Originally, 1961. Most recent edition, 2000.
Source of Book: Personal copy (bought my current copy at the New England Mobile Bookfair ~ 1995, but first read a library copy in elementary school)

© 2009 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Book Chook]

Of all your reviews,- I've read plenty, and become excited over many - this one has me itching to read it. I will go to Amazon and see if I can find a second-hand copy. And then I will save it for a day when I need a special treat!

[Cathy Reeve]

I definitely second your love of Elizabeth Enright's books! Gone-away Lake and Return to Gone-Away are great summer reads - just like I think 'The Saturdays' is a great read for winter/rainy days. I've re-read these many times over the years, since first discovering them in elementary school. In fact, I think my mom first brought a couple of her books home from the library for me when I had the mumps!

[Jen Robinson]

Thanks for sharing my love of Elizabeth Enright's books, Cathy. I love the Melendy books, too. And I agree about the Saturdays for rainy days. Then There Were Five is another great summer book, too.

And Susan, you must try these. Read Gone-Away Lake first, if you can, because that's where Gone-Away and the characters are introduced. I'm so happy to have written a review that made you want to read the book!

[BookMoot]

My own children had these books on their shelves but I don't think I every read them. It is hard enough keeping up with the new titles. I have such a backlog of the classics too.

[Jen Robinson]

It's hard to find time to go back for older books, Camille, when there are so many new ones every day. But these are wonderful!!

[Jenny Schwartzberg]

Okay, now I have to go dig out my copies of both books and reread them. They are also among my childhood favorites! Thanks for spotlighting them. Hopefully there will be more new fans born from your review.

[Laurie]

I love this book too (just gave Gone-Away Lake to my niece for her birthday). So many wonderful bits, like the concoctions Portia and Lucy find in the medicine cabinet, and the little boys trapped in the dumbwaiter ("Off to the moon in an old soup spoon!").

[Jen Robinson]

Jenny, we clearly shared quite a few childhood favorites. I'm glad to have inspired you to re-read these - they hold up remarkably well, I think. And if I can create new fans for the books, I agree, that would be wonderful. Enjoy!

I love the concoctions, Laurie. And the dumbwaiter scene is simply vintage Enright. I love those little boys like they were real. Thanks for sharing Gone-Away fan-dom with me.

[darla d]

I remember loving this book as a child, but I haven't thought about it in ages. I've added it to my list of books to read aloud to my girls. Thanks!

[Freaky (a literary turtle)]

Oooh, thank-you for reminding me of two old favorites...all those new books are going to have to wait while I revisit some old friends.

-Freaky

[Jen Robinson]

Always happy to help add to your reading list, Darla. And Freaky, enjoy revisiting these old friends (I'm actually going to have a post at PBS on Monday, inspired by my re-read, about books as old friends, so your comment is particularly timely.)

[adrienne]

One of our local schools has the Gone-Away books on their summer reading list. I hadn't heard of them at all until they put them on there a few years back, and once I read them, I was sorry I hadn't found them much earlier. They're just the sort of books I loved when I was small.

[Kathleen Armstrong]

I just began reading this book on your recommendation and I'm really enjoying it so much that I ordered a copy and will read aloud to my classes this year. I have always enjoyed Elizabeth Enright. I had missed this one, however. Thanks for bringing it to the top of my list.

[Jen Robinson]

Thanks so much for letting me know of your positive response to this book, Kathleen. I hope that your class enjoys it. I'm sorry that you and Adrienne both missed out on these books when you were younger. But I say, it's never to late to find a great story. Happy reading! The first one, Gone Away Lake, is good, too. But I like this one better.