Retired philosophy Professor Henry James Stuart has much to learn and time seems to be in short supply. It's 1925 and at the age of 67 he has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and given maybe 1-year to live. The doctor tells him death would be easier on him if he were in a warmer climate than his Canyon County, Idaho home.
The idea of moving felt right for Henry as he did not wish to have his two grown sons watch him die the way he had watched his wife die just two years earlier. Plus, he felt the time away from all distraction would afford him the opportunity to prefect his soul. As Henry was deciding on what part of Southern California he wanted to move to, information came to him about a little town in South Alabama.

Henry Stuart was very much the fan of writer/philosopher Leo Tolstoy. Henry has read that Tolstoy was very much the fan of economist/philosopher Henry George. Now Mr.Stuart learns that in 1894, followers of Mr.George had set up a "single-tax" colony in Southern Alabama and named their little town, Fairhope. The move there makes sense to Henry Stuart.

What follows is not a story about Henry's dying year.
It's a story about why Henry chose to live out his remaining life barefooted.
It's a story about why Henry spent the next year of his life building a 14 foot round, concrete hut in which to live.
It's a story about the town of Fairhope, of dreams, philosophers, children, schools, osprey, hurricanes and how a retired professor learned a new way of life.


Other books this story sparked my interest in.
1) Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) as told through John G. Neihardt (1932)
2) Progress and Poverty by Henry George (1879)
3) A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy (1911)

Fairhope remains a beautiful thriving town to this day.
http://piercam.cofairhope.com/view/vi...
Sonny Brewer is quoted as saying, "Fairhope is home to more published authors per capita than any place else in the country. At one point not many years back, three local writers were on the New York Times bestsellers' list at the same time. One author suggested we have a billboard at the edge of town to declare, "Fairhope, Alabama, the home of more writers than readers."

The Fairhope Single Tax Corporation is still in operation with some 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 4,000 acres in and around Fairhope.
Founded in 1907 the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education still serves some of Fairhope's children ranging from first through eighth grade.

Henry Stuart's concrete hut, Tolstoy Park, still stands today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I recently visited, strolled about the site while barefooted, grounding myself in the spirit of Tolstoy Park. I then went inside, sat by a window and read a good portion of this book.
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/...



excerpts are spoiler(ish)

page 5
narration
"Henry walked out of the doctor's office and the drumming rain that had begun to fall went straight through his thin white hair, wetting his head and sending a chill down his back."
"Henry decided, because it was his option to do so, that he would abandon his boots."
"He believed it was Black Elk, or maybe Chief Seattle, who had said that the man who always wears his moccasins thinks the earth is covered with leather."
"He would let his feet know that this piece of earth was covered with mud, and thought perhaps they'ed enjoy knowing that."

page 8
Preacher Will Webb and Henry Stuart
"But do you not fear for your soul now that you'll soon face the Almighty."
"My face has never turned away from God, Nor my ear ever inclined away from his counsel."
"My prayer is that you get a chance to argue your name onto Heaven's roll, for you could argue the horns off a goat."

page 24
Will and Henry
'"If you believe actively imagining your final days can give you strength" - Will's voice was soft . "then let's set to it, Henry. What can I do?"

"Like grain pouring from an open bin, talk between the two men came easily; ideas were planted, extirpated, disagreements never becoming personal even if at times Henry's and Will's voices were raised and their heart rates quickened."

'"I'll travel with only a few possessions ... And I will take the Russian," Henry said, speaking of Leo Tolstoy, "For whither I go" - he smiled at will as he spoke - "thou, Leo, also goest, making my path before me in that great southern wilderness."'
"'Would you stand over there, a bit away from me, Henry? I don't want to be charred when the lightning comes to strike your blasphemous head," said Will"'

page 41
Henry and Will
"'Did you know that the count, in his diary, said that the socialists will never destroy poverty and injustice and the inequality of talents? The most intelligent and the strongest will always make use of the most stupid and the weakest. Justice and the equality of goods, he said, can never be attained by anything less than Christianity, by renouncing the self and recognizing the meaning of one's life to be in the service of others."'
''I did not know Tolstoy said that." Will's expression revealed his genuine surprise, and Henry so enjoyed this small surge of appreciation for Tolstoy ..."'

page 56
Train attendant with Henry
"The attendant asked Henry where he was bound."
"I'll depart the train in Mobile, Alabama," Henry said."
"You going home, sir?"
"In fact, yes, I am going home." He thought of how his friend Will often preached funerals for those gone home . In several seconds he looked back at the attendant. "I've just bought some land there, but it is home that I am going to."

page 77
Henry with his first friend in South Alabama, Kate Anderson
"I'm sorry, I have not seen a paper.' He knew that many people had followed with rabid interest the summer's great sideshow in Tennessee, becoming well known as the Scopes Monkey Trial."
"Kate shook her head and huffed out a big breath. "If Mr.Darrow and Mr.Bryan had not been such grandstanders shamelessly promoting their own reputations in the Tennessee trail," she said, "perhaps some important ground could have been gained ..."
"So have you been teaching long?" Henry asked.
"I've been teaching for almost six years," Kate said, and told Henry all about Marietta Johnson and her now-famous School of Organic Education."

page 91
breakfast with Peter and Leddie Stedman
'Leddie served the men scrambled eggs and fried ham and kept their coffee cups full. When Henry asked about the warm white mush. Leddie became a bit more animated and asked henry if he did not know it was grits. She fixed her gaze on Henry, who said that he had never eaten grits, but that he found them quite good.'

page 115 - 117
narration after Henry's first small hurricane
"Henry awakened in the quiet dark, his back still curved against the wall of the cistern and the boards still leaned in place, concealing the sky above the fallen tree. He lay there for several minutes, not moving, recalling with complete clarity the dream he had had, and understanding its symbolism, Henry became full of certainty and purpose. He would build for himself a cottage, round like a bird's nest, and of concrete like the cistern that had given him shelter from the previous night's storm ... "

"He combed through the dream images. He heard again the phrases of the medicine man and, like a man lost in the deep forest, kept returning to the same place, to this: Their religion is like ours. The religion of the birds is like Black Elk's.'

"So certain was Henry, however, that he had been directed in a dream to do this thing."
"He sat with the idea for a long time, and decided that building a round concrete home was not harmful to anyone, and if the project were dementia-induced, a little craziness should be allowed to a dying man."

page 141
Henry starts work narration
"He had worked with a ditchdigger once who taught him to work at his own pace, that slow digging was not bad digging as long as it was steady. The ditchdigger told Henry to find his rhythm and a hole would happen all by itself. "Man don't dig no hole," the digger said, 'he just move a shovelful of dirt, and another shovelful of dirt, and one more shovelful of dirt, and keep on till the hole say stop."

page 157
Henry with Fairhope's Dr.Anderson
"It's very important, Doctor, that you abandon your mission to tend my health. I accept this illness as a condition of my life, and if it is to be the circumstance of my death, then so be it.'
"I've chosen a path here, Doctor, and I know it's difficult to understand .... But what I most need is my privacy, sir.'
"It's the path I've chosen ... On a journey to a place where I alone can go."

page 173
Henry mixes and pours the blocks for his walls
"And Henry scratched into each block a date, using numbers three inches high. On the very first block he marked 11-11-25."

page 195
narration
"... Henry began to think that he might die, not far off on some other page of the calendar, some other date, but on this day. Today, the eighteenth of August, 1926. At this hour of early evening. barefooted, shirtless ... His beard almost a year long and cotton white. In Baldwin County, Alabama, with no next of kin to claim his body, he was dying."
"Even in this maudlin moment of reckoning, Henry knew that this was as good as any day, these circumstances as right and fit as any for a man to lie down and die."

page 219/220
narration
"A long year of masonry toiling was done. Yesterday he had mortared into place the last of the blocks, finishing the three steps down onto the circular dugout stoop in front of his door. The date scratched into the middle and last step was 10-26-26. A work that had begun in earnest on the ninth of November last year had taken Henry three hundred and fifty-one days to finish. And somehow in the digging and lifting and mortaring, a life had been reclaimed."
"It was interesting to Henry in retrospect, how the storm on the one hand had rent the fabric of so many lives, and on the other had helped him to mend his own. A man facing death, Tolstoy had written, if he knows that death is coming in one minute, in that one minute he will wish to console an abused person or help an old person stand up or put a bandage on someone's injury or repair a toy for a child."
"For Henry, the loss of concern for himself was like a summer day's cool drink of water. Not until the hurricane had he fully apprehended the heaviness of keeping his privacy, defending his solitude, looking away from a hand held out in his direction. But now he could see, in an honest look back at the last fifty years, that he had often been stingy with his time and affection."

page 235
Henry and Clarence Darrow
"Chiefly I've wondered why I spent so much time filling my head with things of questionable worth.' Henry said."
"Questionable! You know good and well, Mr.Stuart, it's worthless. What's the difference if we gather all the facts of the universe into our brains for the worms to eat?"
"It has occurred to me," said Henry, "that the more we think we know, the more we tend to think we matter. We become obsessed with our own cleverness."
"You've nailed it, Mr.Stuart," added Clarence, "One can imagine nothing more tiresome and profitless than sitting down and thinking of oneself."

A lovely character study. Sort of a modern day Thoreau.

Possibly the worst book I’ve had the displeasure of reading. Negative stars should be an option. I paid $1 at a library sale and feel cheated!

My coworker friend who recommended "Neither Wolf Nor Dog" simultaneously recommended the book "The Poet of Tolstoy Park". She brought both in to work with her, and as I stated, I devoured NWND, but I've been really struggling with the TPOTP. Not only has my mind be sidetracked by the spring temperatures, house projects, and other prior engagements, but I've also opened this book a dozen times, read a few pages, and then decided to put it away. As of right now, I've only made it to chapter three out of thirty seven.

It's a very intellectual book, and written eloquently...but I believe this to be the hang up for me. I get bogged down in those words, the complex and eloquence make it hard for my mind to wander into the imaginary world that the author is trying to create. Maybe my intelligence isn't high enough to grasp what Brewer is trying to create for the reader...maybe I haven't read far enough into the story to be grasped. Either way, I'm setting this one on hold, in hopes that at some point, I'll pick it up again and be able to lavish this novel as my coworker does- she's read it a dozen times.

I liked the book way more than I expected to - certainly more than when I first started reading it - but didn't love it. It has some really fascinating psychological and philosophical insights, but the last hour or so of the audiobook felt like the longest in my life. The characters, particularly Henry, also sometimes felt more like conduits for nuggets of philosophy and ideas rather than 3-dimensional people.

I do confess that this being based on a true story is what made me want to read the book and kept me interested. now I want to make a pilgrimage to Tolstoy Park ;)

Oh, this is a treasure! I am not typically a fan of this much philosophy and ideal living in my fiction - even historical fiction and a real protagonist. Still, there are plenty of quotes here to keep one’s life on track.

If you're into Southern literature or maybe just appreciate beautiful writing, give this novel a read. My in-laws loaned it to me and I'm so glad they did. Reading The Poet of Tolstoy Park has firmed up my desire to someday live in Fairhope! It is also a book that makes readers consider our life decisions. Finally, I love a book based on real life and I was so happy to learn about Henry Stuart and his time in Fairhope through Sonny Brewer's fictionalized account.

I enjoyed reading this charming book, selected by Lawyer, a moderator of the group, On the Southern Literary trail. Sonny Brewer's writing is beautiful and I will definitely be reading more of his works. This is the true story of a man in the early 20th century who was given a year to live with tuberculosis. He decided to move from Idaho to Fairhope, Alabama as he heard the weather was good for his condition. They also lived by a single tax law in the community. He was an avid reader and fan of Tolstoy. Throughout the book he references poets, writers, scripture and quotes that give him meaning. He wishes to build a single room hut for his remaining time, and insists on building it without any help. He becomes a lovable, fixture in their small town. I enjoyed reading about all the people that came in and out of his life. But most of all, I enjoyed meeting him.

First, do no harm and live until you die. What a beautiful story.

A lovely, sweet read about an eccentric, thoughtful, kind man. Reminded me of some of the better parts of my ex husband. His love of Tolstoy and questioning of organized religion were appreciated. Based on a true character. Thanks, Sonny Brewer.

This book contains the most wonderful story about a man who was dying and how he chose to live out his last days. It's quite a bit more upbeat than it might sound from that description. Sonny clearly loves the story and the area and his love shines through the whole thing, so much so that you'll love it all, too.

This is a novel which sticks closely to the true story of a man who has been given a death sentence — his doctor in Idaho has told him his tuberculosis will finish him within a year or so and that moving to a warmer place might make things easier for him. Henry Stuart chooses Fairhope, Alabama. He’s always had a philosophical bent (he’s a retired professor), loves Tolstoy, Thoreau, Black Elk and Pueblo Indians. His two children are independent, he’s a widower and seems to have only one friend, a minister who likes to remind him that he should be paying more attention to church and his immortal soul. He goes his own way in 1925.

He learns Fairhope has had progressive beginnings and an occasional celebrated visitor or two. With thoughts of death in mind he begins to shape a new philosophy of life. He sheds belongings including shoes and begins building a brick igloo-like house with home-made bricks. As another reviewer mentioned, the author does tend to get mired in house building details but the book is leavened with humor throughout.

Henry is very Tolstoyian, as he might have admitted if he was being honest. He is mindful of self improvement and giving when he isn’t downright self absorbed. He was frustrating to those around him and was often frustrating to me. He is often self centered more than self reliant. It is no accident that he thinks so much about Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s last trip as he is dying was made to be solitary and to shed his long suffering family.

Stuart’s round house can still be seen and I think you would be more welcome now than during his life there. He did live past the doctor’s expiration date by almost 20 years.

The author lives in Fairhope and this is a very natural subject for his well written novel.