Description
Book SynopsisThe 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.
Trade Review“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
