This memoir is by the author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen. It recounts how Shulman, aged 50, left an urban life to move alone to an island off the Maine coast. Living in meditative solitude, without electricity, plumbing or telephone, and mainly eating the wild greens she found growing around her and the shellfish she caught between the tides, she overcame her fears and discovered a capacity for feeling, thought and sensual delight. Over the course of a decade of island summers she became aware of the nuclear and ecological disasters penetrating every corner of the world, including her isolated island. By living in a consciously and spiritually disciplined low-tech way, she found herself able once more to take her place in the world of activism and committment.