Gaining Ground

Description

A Lit Hub and Observer “Need to Read” Novel of the Summer

“It will stay with me for the rest of my days. A life-changing book” –Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital

Unearthed after half a century, this radical portrait of a woman who leaves her family to live alone in a woodland cabin will pierce the heart of anybody who has ever wanted to escape.

I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra is a wife and mother living a suburban dream–until one day, she walks away. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and the silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?

Gaining Ground, originally published as Abra in North America, is a both a radical meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape–who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Joan Barfoot
Published: 08/25/2026
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571399888
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 0.70″ H x 7.70″ L x 5.00″ W

About the Author
Joan Barfoot (born 1946) is the author of eleven novels. Her books, which reviewers have celebrated as “harrowing and hilarious” and “gloriously subversive”, have been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A recipient of the Marian Engel Award, she has also been a journalist during much of her career. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada.