A rare novel of ephemeral beauty - one that I am so glad Faber is republishing this year - about the crushing emptiness of loneliness, and how being alone can sometimes be the only salve.

Ever since GAINING GROUND was first published in 1978 - under the title of ABRA - readers have hotly debated the question at its core - of whether Abra's abandonment of her family to seek her own blazing truth is something to be decisively condemned, or respect as a powerful and courageous act of selfhood. But what really stands out to me, both in Barfoot's prose and in Abra's own dialogue, is the lack of a question at all.

The reader is left in no doubt as to the selfishness of her actions, the act of living totally for oneself. But what she is able to achieve for herself, in her own world away from the world, is something truly sacrosanct, regardless of external stimuli and context.

One passage that really stuck out to me was Katie's attempts to unpick what it is about her long-distant mother that makes her feel so calm, in comparison to all the other people in her life: "I don't trust them not to hate whatever it is I really am. That's weird, isn't it? I know so many people, and I guess I don't trust any of them. Why do you suppose that is? I wonder what I'm afraid of? . . . I wonder how come you're the one I trust?"

There is something about Abra's utter dedication to the inner self she has found, a state of being seemingly at utter odds with the rules of any society. Her utter isolation offers up something indescibrable and consoling for her daughter, even despite the rush of anger and pain of the past that comes with it.

Agreement or disagreement with Abra's decisions pale in comparison to what they can teach, about the importance of putting your wellbeing first, of living for yourself. I will never forget her. I will never forget this book.

I first read this book when I was in my teens and it has always stayed with me. It's been amazing to read it again and to find it still so alive. I love the details of living and surviving alone and the descriptions of the landscape around the cabin. In the Afterword, Joan Barfoot calls writing 'luxuriously solitary', which is how the narrator Abra's life alone struck me. The novel leaves open questions about Abra's sanity, her choices, whether she is heartless or simply finding a way, at last, that she can thrive. I couldn't help wondering (as one of Barfoot's older acquaintances did) what might become of Abra as she ages, yet the story also feels beautifully complete and satisfying.

Gaining Ground is the story of Abra, a woman who leaves her family, her home, her life, to live in an isolated cabin, to be at one with herself and nature. The sort of woman that I could see Ben Fogle visiting in his television programme “New Lives in the Wild”. It is sad, poignant and uplifting all at once, and reminds us that our life is also important and must be lived, and facing up to the consequences of our decisions. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for a review copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s hard to do it justice really, but the premise is simple - burned out mother and wife who has dedicated her life to serving the needs of her husband and kids decides to leave and live by herself in a remote cabin and live off the land. Her daughter turns up, as an adult, and this is the start of her looking back and remembering her life and the process of deciding to take that step.

It is beautifully written and paced. It moves between her memories of her life before she made the move, with descriptions of her slow descent into a kind of stifling ennui, and her life in the woods with really evocative and precise descriptions of the nature around her.

It reminded me of some other (excellent) books I’ve really enjoyed that touch on similar themes or have a similar character study of a conflicted woman at their core. Books it brought to mind were A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, La Fugue by Aurélie Valognes, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman.

Highly recommend this forgotten novel, now thankfully found and being published very soon.

The questions this book raises makes it an ideal choice for a bookclub. Written in 1978 it is as relevant and fresh today as it was then.

On the face of it, Abra appears to have an ideal life with an understanding husband, who is a good provider for herself and their two children. But all is not well with Abra who gradually finds herself descending into a well of despair and finally unable to keep up the pretence of normality succumbs to the urge to leave everything behind and try to find peace for herself living in an isolated cabin with some land and to go back to nature.

Remembering 1978 it became the trend back then for organic gardening, and self-sufficiency to a certain extent and wholefood eating, and this comes across in this story. I loved the description of Abra’s observances of the natural world around her and how she went about creating a home from the very basic cabin and nurturing the garden back to life to be productive.

I enjoyed this book and can’t think why I have never come across this author before and it certainly gives you food for thought. If you make the choice to have children do you have the right to just go off and leave them, with all the inevitable consequences; or does everyone deserve to lead a quiet peaceful life away from everything if that is what they crave? But there is a third element here in that Abra is clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness. It is a book provokes as much discussion now as it did when first published! I will look to read other books by this author.

Many thanks to Joan Barfoot, Faber and Faber, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy of this book.

A reprint of a book initially published in the 1970s, but I think just as relevant today. I didn’t realise initially that it wasn’t a new release and, since there aren’t any significant markers stating what year the book is set in (save vague references to money), the story and themes do feel timeless.

A story about a woman who (suddenly and without notice) leaves behind her life and family to live alone in a cabin, the story is really about living selfishly and finding a sort of inner happiness. The book is very poetic and very readable.

Some of the best bits for me were when Abra is confronted by her ex husband and later her grown daughter. Even though she claimed she basically found her true self by leaving her old life behind, it seemed to me that at times she was more lost than ever (forgetting her name, feeling that her daughter wasn’t her daughter). I would’ve liked a bit more of a confrontation of her decisions, but I think part of the book is really seeing that sometimes a person’s decisions are just personal and irrational.

A really enjoyable read and a good length!

Joan Barfoot’s Gaining Ground is a brilliant, sharp exploration of a fantasy many contemplate but few ever dare to execute: completely walking away from one’s life.

The novel centers on Abra, a woman who seemingly 'has it all': a supportive husband, two children, a comfortable suburban home, and a predictable social calendar. Yet, feeling herself slowly dissolving into the roles of wife and mother until nothing of her original self remains, she does the unthinkable. She packs a bag, buys a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness, and simply leaves.

What makes Barfoot’s narrative so compelling is her refusal to cloak this act in romanticism. Abra’s departure isn't a whimsical quest for a bohemian lifestyle; it is a calculated, almost desperate act of survival.

Barfoot’s prose is wonderfully lean and rhythmic, mirroring the rigorous, repetitive tasks of Abra’s new life: hauling water, chopping wood, and preparing for harsh winters.

Gaining Ground stands as a monumental piece of feminist literature because it dares to ask uncomfortable questions about the cost of the nuclear family on a woman's soul. Barfoot explores the profound guilt, liberation, and societal taboo of a mother prioritising her own existence over her domestic duties. It is a book that challenges the reader at every turn, forcing us to weigh the value of security against the price of freedom.

Gaining Ground is an intellectually fierce novel. Joan Barfoot writes with an extraordinary psychological precision that gets entirely under your skin. It is an unforgettable read for anyone who has ever looked at their routine and wondered who they would be if they just kept driving past their driveway.

I found this a deeply thought-provoking novel.

We follow Abra, an upper middle-class wife and mother who, after growing increasingly detached from both her identity and her family, abandons the life she knows for an isolated existence in a cabin on a farm. In doing so she strips away the responsibilities and social expectations that defined her former life.

As readers, we’re confronted with an interesting tension: is Abra a symbol of freedom and self-determination, or a woman abandoning obligation with little regard for the damage her choices inflict on those around her?

This felt like the core question of the novel, explored through both Abra and her teenage daughter, Katie. (view spoiler)

This novel was originally published almost 50 years ago, yet it still feels remarkably contemporary in its exploration of womanhood, identity, duty, and autonomy.

Whether readers ultimately view Abra with admiration, frustration, or something in between, the novel is a fascinating deconstruction of the ways in which our roles and responsibilities in society form a sense of identity.

Joan Barfoot’s *Gaining Ground* is a remarkable, quietly radical novel about withdrawal, solitude and the slow reclamation of self.

Abra leaves behind the structures by which a woman’s life is usually measured — marriage, motherhood, clocks, mirrors, social expectation — and enters a different relationship with time, nature and herself. In the wilderness she learns how to grow food, live with silence, observe the natural world, and become present to her own interior life without the constant reflection of other people’s needs or judgements.

What might easily have become a simple story of escape becomes something much deeper: an inner journey into stillness, self-sufficiency and elemental being. Barfoot’s writing is at times glorious — precise, sensory, unsentimental and startlingly alive to the textures of weather, soil, hunger, memory and thought.

The afterword adds a powerful further layer, acknowledging the uncomfortable debate around Abra’s leaving and the charge of selfishness. Barfoot resists easy judgement. Her observation that, with or without Abra, her children would inevitably both suffer and thrive, though perhaps in different ways, gives the novel its moral seriousness. This is not a simple tale of escape or liberation, but a profound exploration of freedom, consequence, motherhood, solitude and the impossibility of living any life without cost.

Additionally, Barfoot’s afterword, with its reference to the “handmaiden” impulse and the partial recession of women’s freedoms, makes this republication feel urgently contemporary: Abra’s solitude is not an easy feminist fantasy, but a troubling inquiry into what freedom costs, what domestic identity conceals, and how quickly women’s autonomy can be questioned, romanticised, curtailed or erased.

First published decades ago, the novel feels astonishingly contemporary. In an age of noise, performance and relentless visibility, *Gaining Ground* offers a powerful meditation on what remains when a woman steps outside the mirrors held up by society and begins to live according to deeper, quieter rhythms.

This is a fierce, beautiful and unsettling book — one that asks what freedom costs, what solitude reveals, and what it means to become fully answerable to oneself.

This is an incredibly visceral read.
It took me through every possible emotion, and I recognized in it the long-term desire of women to free themselves from the caretaker stereotype that –like every stereotype– takes too much for granted.
Regardless of gender issues, it is also captivating to read something that connects us so unavoidably to our wild nature, this idea that our modern world eases our prime instincts.

‘And then I left them, left all of it.’

First published in 1978, Gaining Ground follows Abra, a woman who marries young and becomes a mother and homemaker, before abandoning it all. She withdraws and lives in a cabin in the countryside, delighted with her solace until one day, Katie, her daughter, arrives.

This book tore me. On the one hand, Abra was empty and lost in motherhood and purposeless days - how joyous that she found her place in the woods. On the other, Abra became selfish and abandoned her marriage and children - how could anyone do such a heartless thing. The writing was beautiful and compulsive and I dislike Abra entirely.

Faber and Faber have made such an excellent choice in republishing this for a new audience on the 30th July this month. I am so pleased that this beautiful ponder of a novel isn’t lost to history.

So grateful for this copy, thank you!

This is such a radical book, particularly for the time it was published. It follows Abra, a woman who fell into marriage with a nice man and had two nice children and who has, for want of a better word, a good life by any standard. The problem is that somewhere along the way Abra, who had been largely sleepwalking into the existence allotted women like her, wakes up and finds herself bereft and empty of purpose and any sense of herself as an individual. Abra walks out on her life and children and makes a life for herself alone, living off the land and with minimal interaction with humans. When her now adult daughter appears to confront her, Abra looks back on her life and the decisions she made and reflects on whether she might have done things differently. At times it is difficult to like Abra but you cannot help admiring her. Barfoot doesn't wrap up the story neatly or answer all the many questions you as the reader might have, but she does offer a different viewpoint from which to see life. This book is as relevant now as it was then, which says a lot in itself about the situation women find themselves in.

I really enjoyed reading about Abra's escape from the controls of family life. She was unhappy fulfilling the demands of a dutiful wife, but then she had the courage to make a new independent life for herself. She realised that conforming to the norm was not for her.

Astonishing. Rare that I feel so seen in a novel.

Woman walks out of her life, her marriage, her "normal world" to live as a hermit in the countryside. Years later her daughter visits to find out why.

I am so grateful that seemingly small, quiet novels like this are being written and re-published, showing that not everyone wants the same things in life. Loved it.

As I was reading this excellent and powerful book, I kept wondering why I'd never read any work by this author before. After reading it, I know I'll be reading more. I loved this book, which opens with a woman who is outside, hard at work and reminding herself that her name is Abra. She is so used to being alone that she's almost forgotten her name, even as she knows who she is. She sees a visitor coming up the lane towards her cabin and is dismayed. She doesn't know who this person is or what she wants, but soon learns that this is her daughter, Katie, now grown, who was 9 years old when her mother left. The interaction is tense, but Abra suggests that Katie book herself into a hotel in the nearby town and visit her from time to time. Katie agrees. These visits and their time together bring up memories for Abra and readers learn about her past life--how she ended up in what other people might see as an enviable life, only to walk away to create a life based on what felt right to her.

There is so much in this book and so much that I could relate to in my own life. I grew up in the kind of world Abra left behind and the author captures the shallowness and game-playing aspect of it so well. Even though Abra and her husband, Stephen, are successfully 'improving' their situation as the years go by, at least by societal standards, Abra feels less and less satisfied with and more and more distant from her own life. She doesn't feel successful at all, even as she rationalizes with herself about what she 'should' feel. She loses herself and feels like she's acting out a life. I've been there myself. It can be bewildering to understand that what people think is a good life is quite the opposite of that on a personal level. Abra doesn't set out a plan to leave her family, the whole thing unfolds quickly and unexpectedly. One day, she just knows where she is supposed to be. But the groundwork had been laid over several years as she came to understand that she was the outlier and she couldn't live her life in the situation she was in. Her husband wasn't going to give up his life and while some version of her could continue to exist in that world, she couldn't build a life there. Throughout the book, readers follow Abra's thought processes, her growing awareness, her epiphanies, and her evolution. I was gripped by this book from the start. I was rooting for Abra and felt some tension about how Katie's arrival would impact her hard won peace. For me, moving away from a situation in which I was acting out a life with my name on it didn't involve leaving my family, but it did involve leaving a world in which I'd invested most of my adult life to that point. It was extremely difficult and it took a long time to get back to myself. Joan Barfoot captures this perfectly. This edition also contains a fascinating afterword by the author in which she writes about the book and about the reactions to the book when it was first published. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.