Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot

From Faber & Faber:

A Lit Hub and Observer "Need to Read" Novel of the Summer

"It will stay with me for the rest of my days. A life-changing book" --Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital

Unearthed after half a century, this radical portrait of a woman who leaves her family to live alone in a woodland cabin will pierce the heart of anybody who has ever wanted to escape.

I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra is a wife and mother living a suburban dream--until one day, she walks away. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and the silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?

Gaining Ground, originally published as Abra in North America, is a both a radical meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape--who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.