Peter Forbes - A Man Apart. Bill Coperthwaites Radical Experiment in Living

Praise for A Man Apart

Two remarkable people writing about a third remarkable manand full of lessons for the ordinary rest of us. This is a lovely and important book.

Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

Not many know that Walden is not just the product of a brilliant experiment in living: Thoreau spent two years penning six painstaking revisions to arrive at the classic book. In Bill Coperthwaite, Forbes and Whybrow discover a Walden of a man, only to uncover gaps, in him and in themselves, between brilliant solitary achievement and the kind of touch needed to ground and guide a viable community. Many revisions, much pain and forgiveness, and only partial fulfillments follow. But if there is another way to move from our anti-culture into communities ruled by loving intention, I dont know what it is. Explore your misunderstandings to your advantage, advises Zen master Dogen. A Man Apart does exactly that. This is a beautifully raw account of loving grief, instructive failure, and steadfast allegiance to an utter planetary necessity: major cultural transformation.

David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K

What is a good life? The models offered by our celebrity culture are mostly shabby and shallow. To find worthier examples you need to look elsewhereto books, for example, where you can meet Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Gary Snyder, Barbara Kingsolver, and Wendell Berry, among others. To that lineage of American rebels you can now add Bill Coperthwaite. In this eloquent portrait, Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow document the search for integrity, wide-ranging competence, and high purpose, not only in Coperthwaites life, but in their own. This is a wise and beautiful book.

Scott Russell Sanders, author of Earth Works: Selected Essays

William Coperthwaite was a man of vision and integrity, as well as a personal inspiration to Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow. His desire to live simply led him to a remote stretch of the Maine shore, where Coperthwaites commitment to carving wooden bowls and building elegant yurts created human elegance answering to the beauty of his surroundings. Forbess luminous photographs evoke this aspect of his achievement. Exceptional integrity can sometimes feel rigid or bruising to those whom it also attracts, however. As Emerson once wrote about Coperthwaites predecessor Thoreau, Id sooner take an elm tree by the arm. A great achievement of Forbes and Whybrow in A Man Apar t is to convey the complexity of this strong-minded life fully and honestly. Such an approach makes their reflections on love, struggle, and grief all the more powerful.

John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home

What a rare and important offering. Peter and Helen have given us a deeply honest portrait of a man. We are invited to witness him from above, from beneath, from the side, from within, in his light, in his darkness. This story is about building one last yurt without knowing its the last; its about how one solitary mans ethic influenced the lives of many; its about the complexity, joy, and frustration of friendship. Bill Coperthwaite once said, Bite off less than you can chew. He was right! This book calls out to those of us seeking connection in our modern era. A Man Apart left me with the exquisite sense of having traveled somewhere and been transformed because of it.

Molly Caro May, author of The Map of Enough: One Womans Search for Place

This is a terrific book, honestly drafted and beautifully wrought. As it is with yurts, so it is with communities and with bookstheir lasting strength comes from the integrity of their parts and the genius of their joinery. Deep gratitude to Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow for their work of grace and love.

Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort

In this remarkable and deeply moving book, Peter and Helen tell the story of Bill Coperthwaite, a Maine homesteader, designer, and social thinker whose unique way of life and passionate ideals inspired all who knew him. Beautifully and sensitively told, the story explores the complexities of the relationship between themthe shared ideals, hard realities, disappointments, and joys of intensely interwoven lives. Bills lifea monumental testament to creativity, brilliance, integrity, and courageinvites the reader to reexamine the profound questions of how each of us chooses to live a life. A Man Apart is a riveting and intensely human storya treasure to be revisited many times.

Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, author of Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows: A Couples Journey Through Alzheimers

A loving tribute to Bill, a wonderful man who inspired all of us with his dedication to indigenous building, natural materials, and, above all else, use of human hands.

Lloyd Kahn, author of Shelter and Tiny Homes

Copyright 2015 by Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow.

All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs copyright 2015 by Peter Forbes.

Photograph on page iv by Abbie Sewall. Photograph on page 7 by Kenneth Kortmeier. Photographs on pages 104 and 183, top , by Courtney Bent. Photographs on pages 139, 147, and 160 from the archives of Bill Coperthwaite. Photograph on page 146 by Nancy Slayton. Photograph on page 238 by Michael Sacca.

The Long Boat Copyright 1985 by Stanley Kunitz, from Passing Through: The Later Poems New and Selected by Stanley Kunitz. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Developmental Editor: Brianne Goodspeed

Copy Editor: Eileen M. Clawson

Proofreader: Helen Walden

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the United States of America.

First printing January, 2015.

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Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise on the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative ( www.greenpressinitiative.org ), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. A Man Apart was printed on paper supplied by RR Donnelley that contains postconsumer recycled fiber.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Chelsea Green Publishing

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(802) 295-6300

www.chelseagreen.com

The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose

from its mooring, under

the screaking of the gulls,

he tried at first to wave

to his dear ones on shore,

but in the rolling fog

they had already lost their faces.

Too tired even to choose

between jumping and calling,

somehow he felt absolved and free

of his burdens, those mottoes

stamped on his name-tag:

Conscience, ambition, and all

that caring.

He was content to lie down

with the family ghosts

in the slop of his cradle,

buffeted by the storm,