[Abra suffers from psychological unbelievability]…. Barfoot's heroine is a woman who leaves husband and family to go live on her own in a bush farm. On the first page, Abra can hardly remember her own name. By chapter three, with the arrival of Katie, her daughter, she is remembering detail after detail of her own departure and arrival. As current as the subject matter is, I never really could let myself match the novel to the real world after that initial disruption of belief. The novel is almost totally linear, with careful attention to the journalistic surface, while, supposedly, Abra is hooking up with the deeper powers of nature, contentment and wisdom. This process of change is not matched by any elements of the form whatsoever, so that although the novel is cast in the first person, it still reads as though Abra is being discussed and described...