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With each passing year, the 70s has taken on a kind of mystical quality. And, once upon a time in the 70s, a group of Vietnam vets, non-Vietnam vets, young men, young women, some children and a host of beloved, and exquisitely well-cared for animals made their home ona farm just beyond Philadelphia’s far western suburbs. No, it was not a commune. It was more like a tribe. They enjoyed life, and endured grief, and welcomed roustabouts and famous singers and celebrities. But, mostly, they appreciated and savored their decade, the earth, themselves, their cherished pets and farm animals, their diverse music, and their drugs and, above all, their by-the-seat-of-their-tattered-jeans, often-festive lives.
And this really did happen. Shaun Mullen, whose writing is almost Hemingway-esq, takes us back to that time in vivid detail. He serves up a series of carefully crafted, detailed vignettes. Some will haunt you once you put the book down. But to say “There’s A House in the Land” is strictly a bunch of vignettes and episodes is not entirely accurate. Mullen recreates with words, the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, thoughts, drama and hum-drum reality of the lives of a band of free-thinking youths in the 70s. He transports you back in a word-picture time-machine. If you weren’t part of that culture during the 70s, or weren’t born yet, “There A House In Then Land” will take you there so you feel it and experience it.
In several parts of the book he presents broader insights that go beyond his engrossing chronicle of the tribe’s life on the farm. For instance, when writing about Denny, a housemate for a while: “As a draft dodger, Denny was a fugitive until President Carter pardoned him and his hundreds of thousands of other young men in 1977. It was an aftershock that didn’t begin to redress the immorality of a war that discriminated against the poor, protected the well-to-do who had the resources to avoid becoming cannon fodder, and sought to imprison the conscientious.”
Mullen painstakingly describes the, animals, the planting and preparing of foods, various residents’ lives and several tragic deaths. In discussing the aftermath of the tragic car accident death of Pattie and her little daughter Caitlin, Mullen reveals how the tragedy still stays with him. Literally:
“Caitlin had a set of wooden building blocks with a letter on one side and a number on another that she would play with on the floor of the Phone Booth. With a heavy heart, I eventually packed up the blocks and her other toys, but did not notice until a few days later that the ‘Y’ block had become wedged in a corner. I have placed this block where I can see it everywhere I have lived since leaving the farm. ‘Y’ as in ‘Why did this have to happen?’ I am no closer to finding the answer than after the crash.”
“There’s A House in the Land” whisks you away to an era in a way that shatters the common stereotypes about that era. For instance, no, because a group of diverse people lived together on a farm did NOT mean it was a “commune,” or that they had even an informal “leader.” They used drugs at times but it was far from their obsessive focus. There was no grand plan or philosophy. Many things that didn’t begin with “s” just happened. Every plant, animal, home-made dish served at meals; every dog, every cat, every person with his or her flaws and hangups– all were tacitly appreciated because they were part of a moment when the ongoing celebration was of being alive and being able to live with few constraints.
Mullen notes that today he has a few regrets about some of what occurred and some of the paths he chose, but it was what it was — and most of it was glorious.
Don’t expect a big plotline from “There’s A House in The Land.” Expect to step into a wonderful, vivid wayback machine and be taken — seemingly in deliciously vivid “real time” — to a moment in time when big and little pleasures were truly savored, little was requested and a satisfying bounty was seemingly magically received.
Also be sure to read Ron Beasley’s review of this book HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.