PANCAKE HOLLOW PRIMER

a Hudson Valley Story
by Laurence Carr
WINNER 2012
Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel
(under 80,000 words)
Picture
Pancake Hollow Primer is the story of Gulf War vet and drifter Press Frank Closky who finds himself on a physical and spiritual journey after he inherits an 1820s farmhouse in New York’s Hudson Valley. At first indifferent to his ownership of “seven acres with a house, outbuildings, and all the contents within,” Frank discovers a land where nature speaks its ancient history, where ghosts and seers hold the past, and where he comes to find his place in a rock-laden piece of property and a house with no square corners.
    Inspired by writers like Sarah Orne Jewett, naturalist John Burroughs, and poets Gary Snyder and Mary Oliver, author Laurence Carr weaves together fiction, essay, and prose poem to create an insightful and often humorous tale of rural life and how an old house and its land can bring a broken person back to wellness.

Cover Photo by Gary Mathius
Cover design by Tony Davis
Book Design by Alicia Fox
Available through SUNY Press, Codhill Press and through local and online bookstores.
The themes of the book take hold.  Acceptance, history, love.  When I closed the book (bidding farewell to Frank) the whole of Pancake Hollow 
had sprung beautifully to life.”
—Anthony Robinson, author of The Flood Plain
“I found this work deeply touching. Home really is worth finding for Frank Closky, perhaps for all of us. Pancake Hollow Primer is also intriguing for being an amalgam of prose and poetry. It’s very readable, very down to earth, very enjoyable.”
—Will Nixon’s literary blog, willnixon.com
5 Stars (Highest Rating)
—Goodreads Website
Praise for Pancake Hollow Primer
In this deft interweaving of poetry, prose, journal entries and eloquent lists, Carr digs deep as his hero sifts through the house’s vertical history, unlocking its secrets and slowly releasing his own.”
--Chronogram, September, 2011 see link
                                               
“A marvelous book. Laurence Carr has found magic where few would look. We've all seen those old country homesteads haunted by time and by junk rusting in the grass. In such an unlikely setting Carr has written an appealing fable about the healing power of place, using poetry, prose, and a bit of witchcraft.”
—Will Nixon, Walking Woodstock
(co-authored with Michael Perkins)

“Laurence Carr has written a spellbinding story of a house and its occupant, Frank, who rebuilds his life through its fascinating history.  Pancake Hollow Primer moved me deeply, with its elegiac tone and touches of humor, as Frank discovers new life in objects left in the barn, and in the process, rebuilds his own life.  His new neighbors, including a fortune teller and 'ghost,' kept me laughing, as the poems deepened the mystery of place.”
—Barbara Adams, Ph.D.
Poet and author, The Stone Man & the Poet

 “The book is a remarkable portrayal of the inner life of a traumatized, basically withdrawn and non-verbal man, who is healed by the loving forces of the magical, natural world around him. The subtle, highly nuanced meaning of objects, and the ways in which they both carry and contain the history of themselves and the people who handled them, is evocatively portrayed. Everyone should have a Pancake Hollow in their lives.”
—Tamar Ogler, Psychotherapist, New York City
                                                  
“A few doors off of Main Street is the Inquiring Minds independent bookstore. It features local writers like Laurence Carr (Pancake Hollow Primer: a Hudson Valley Story/ Codhill Press). It’s a must for your fall reading list.”
—The Free George thefreegeorge.com
The online magazine of Upstate NY: from the Capital Region to the Adirondacks: “Daytripping or Weekending in New Paltz” by Craig Sarich, September 2011 see link

“Carr creates a novel of healing.”
—The New Paltz Oracle, October 6, 2011
                                               
“Original in concept and design . . .Readers familiar with the region are bound to derive extra pleasure from its local references and particulars.”
Judith Saunders,
—Marist College: The Hudson River Valley Review,
A Journal of Regional Studies, Spring 2013