Description:
The story of a man coming into his own by coming home.
Since he was a boy, Bill Eville knew he wanted two things in life: to be a writer and a father. Being a minister's husband had not been on this list, having left the church as a teenager as soon as his parents stopped making him go each Sunday. In Washed Ashore, Eville's life changes when his wife Cathlin takes a job as the first female pastor of a 350-year-old church on Martha's Vineyard, the island that was once home to generations of his ancestors. With their two small children in tow, the couple begins a new life eight miles out at sea. Readers follow Eville's journey from stay-at-home-dad to newspaper editor as he discovers what it means to be a writer, a father, and--after his wife's devasting breast cancer diagnosis--what it truly means to be a minister's husband. Washed Ashore, told in a series of linked essays, is poignant and funny, filled with faith, struggle, and light.
Brief description:
Bill Eville is the editor of the Vineyard Gazette, where his work has garnered numerous awards from the New England Newspaper & Press Association. He is a graduate of Princeton University and holds an MFA from Florida State University. His essays have appeared in print and on-air at venues such as The New York Times, This American Life, The Moth, and WBUR's Cognoscenti. He lives on Martha's Vineyard with his wife and two children.
Review Quotes:
"Moving vignettes of striving to be a good husband, stay-at-home-dad and writer....In writing about the sweet and bitter particulars of his corner of the world, Eville has written a book about life itself."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune"A memoir that reads like a long walk through the woods . . . Eville's writing is poignant, funny, and many times it makes my eyes water." --Martha's Vineyard Times
"Here is life: rich, raw, glorious and complicated. Bill Eville's experiences are at once singular--married to a minister, living on an island--but also universal. In this memoir, he writes about his ordinary, extraordinary existence with warmth, wit, elegance and heart."
--Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winning author of March "A memoir of quiet genius. Eville's openheartedness is on full display. . ."
--Presbyterian Outlook "Storytelling takes creativity. But memoir requires courage. With creativity, courage, and vulnerability, Bill Eville holds up a mirror to himself--and in the process helps us all see a little piece of ourselves. He is still on the journey to home, still evolving. But through these pages shines the bright light of a great husband, a great father, and for me personally, a great friend!"
--U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock "A touching and heartfelt memoir that explores parenting, love, illness and faith with buoyancy and hope. Like a visit to the Vineyard, it stays with you for a long time." --Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends "There are few writers--people, in general--who can make us acutely aware that the very guts of our lives are constantly spilling out of us. It is the even rarer human-writer who can help us curate those hurts and joys and passions, to organize the unorganizable. Bill Eville is such a writer and Washed Ashore is a book I will never forget. It will make you appreciate your own life, and I'm not sure there is much more we can ask a book to do." --Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women