Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: Rediscovering Life in an American Village
Barbara Holland
Paperback
(Harvest Books, June 2, 1999)
When Barbara Holland inherited her mother's small cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, she quit her job in advertising and moved from Philadelphia to her new home high on a mountain, with only her cat for company. In Bingo Night at the Fire Hall, Holland recounts her adventures and misadventures adjusting to life in a rural community, as her small town adjusts to the inevitable encroachment of suburbia. Whether writing obituaries for the local paper or learning how to handle a chainsaw, Holland shares the triumphs and travails of being a newcomer to an old land with a rich history, a beautiful place sadly losing ground to subdivisions and four-lane highways. Filled with wonderful anecdotes, humor, and insight, Bingo Night at the Fire Hall is a fascinating portrait of a paradisical yet disappearing world.