From Publishers Weekly
Red House, built by Walter Hatch circa 1647, was one of the first houses in Marshfield, Mass., a coastal community some 30 miles south of Boston. Although it had been stipulated that the house would stay in the Hatch family, descendant Richard Hatch sold it to Messer's father in 1965, impressed with his respect for the property. While Messer didn't obsess over restoring the house to its "original" state, he approached all changes mindful of Red House history. And so the author (now a poet and teacher at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington) grew up in an oddly anachronistic household—with rag rugs instead of shag, Dutch ovens instead of electric ranges, wood instead of Formica. Daguerreotypes of 19th-century and photographs of 20th-century Hatches were carefully preserved; Hatch's original will was displayed on the wall. Although Messer felt like she was "growing up with someone else's history," this dual identity may have suggested her book's unusual form, which weaves Messer's story of growing up in Red House with the Hatch family's story. Her research into New England history unexpectedly fascinates (e.g., how 17th-century settlers would wear masks when carousing drunk to avoid identification; how they earmarked their communally grazing cattle). Beyond giving readers a sense of the liveliness of early New England life and explaining what it was like to grow up in a historic house, Messer gives readers a great sense of the power of a house to pull and shape its inhabitants. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Messer brings a poet's ear, an architect's eye, a historian's attention to detail, and her own firsthand experiences as a resident in this account of "New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-In House." Alternating chapters tell of two family histories, that of Walter Hatch, who built the Red House in 1647 in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and that of Ronald Messer, who purchased the house from Hatch's great-great-great-great-great-grandson and thus broke the string of Hatches who occupied the residence for more than 300 years. By themselves, the family histories are not particularly distinguished; yet, in the slow uncovering and sharing of quotidian events and their historical contexts--Walter Hatch, for example, was born just two years after the pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving in Plymouth--Messer renders these stories unique, indelible, and mysteriously interactive with one another. This book stands as an important historical document, yet it also gives informed insights into the eternal dynamics of family life, the nature of happenstance and fate, and the sadly detached circumstances in which so many Americans now find themselves. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Charles Baxter, author of Feast of Love
Few contemporary American writers have so acute a feeling for the interweaving of personal and social history...wonderful.

Terry Ryan, bestselling author of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Impossible to put down.

Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy
The Red House is the best work of non-fiction I’ve read in years... This book sizzles with authority.

Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish
Red House is the story of America: hopeful, tragic and persevering... Remarkable and amazing.

Beth Kephart, author of A Slant of Sun, National Book Award finalist, and Still Love in Strange Places
Boldly conceived and meticulously crafted, Red House is alive with ghosts and possibilities...mesmerizing.

George Howe Colt, author of The Big House, National Book Award Finalist
Joyous and tragic by turns...an act of loving restoration that ensures the Red House will live on forever.

Jane Brox, author of Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History
Sarah Messer’s lively, lyrical memoir...gives new meaning to the idea of place and the place of history in our lives.

Charles Siebert, author of Wickerby
Lucid, Lyrical prose...a truly memorable work.

Jenny McPhee, author of The Center of Things
Messer's riveting account of intersecting families over space and time is a powerful and beautiful piece of writing

Book Description
What would it be like to grow up in a home suffused with three hundred years of another family’s history? When Sarah Messer’s parents impulsively purchased Red House from Richard Warren Hatch, the great-great-great-great-great grandson of the original owner, Walter Hatch, they acquired much more than a lovingly preserved colonial home. The house contained Hatch family journals, letters, and daguerreotypes, and Walter Hatch’s last will and testament, which stated that the house was to be passed down "forever from generation to generation to the world’s end never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever." With a poet’s eye for clever detail and an ear for the rhythm of place and language, Red House is a real work of living history, a story of America from its wild beginnings in colonial New England through nine generations of the Hatch family. Based on an award-winning article Messer wrote for Yankee Magazine about Red House, this is a book for those of us who love old houses, colonial history, and beautifully written family stories.

About the Author
Sarah Messer teaches poetry and creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Her poetry has been published in the Kenyon Review, Paris Review, Story, and many other journals. She is the author of a book of poetry, Bandit Letters. She has received a Mary Roberts Rinehart award for Emerging Writers, and grants and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Poet Sarah Messer has given an exquisite twist to the memoir genre with her nonfiction debut, Red House. Billed as "a mostly accurate account of New England's oldest continually lived-in house," Messer blends elements of regional history, architecture, genealogical research, and personal memoir to re-create a charming story of the historic Massachusetts home in which she was raised.

The Red House was built in 1647 by planter, shipbuilder, and mill worker Walter Hatch and continued to belong to the Hatches until 1965, when Messer's parents became only the second family to own it. Over the past four decades the Red House has become a living, breathing being, and a huge part of the author's family.

Messer alternates chapters of the book that trace the joys and miseries of the generations of Hatches who inhabited the house for three centuries with beautifully written recollections of her own family's life there. Her research and reflection yield many moving realizations about the nature and importance of a family identity and roots. But in the end, Messer concludes that though her family are the rightful owners of the Red House, it is perhaps more accurate to think of them as adoptive caretakers of a dwelling that will always contain the spirit of its ancestral occupants. (Fall 2004 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Built in 1647, the Red House in Marshfield, Massachusetts, was the home of one family for eight generations. The will of Walter Hatch, the original owner and builder, hung on the living room wall and warned that Red House was to be passed down "forever from generation to generation to the world's end never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever." In 1965, Richard Warren Hatch went against the weight of tradition and sold the house to Sarah Messer's parents. Shortly after the Messers moved in, Hatch began returning photographs, furniture, and other objects to the house, many several hundred years old, saying they belonged there." "Weaving stories of the Hatch and Messer families and drawing upon recurring themes - such as fire, drowning, and X-rays - Sarah Messer explores the odd experience of growing up with another family's birthright. We meet eighteenth-century lovers, preachers, and shipbuilders; nineteenth-century poets and soldiers; and twentieth-century flower farmers and Girl Scout camp proprietors. We witness a 1970s reenactment of Pilgrim life, and a 1990s renovation project that brings the Messer family together only to take apart layer upon layer of myth and fact surrounding the Red House." This memoir asks thought-provoking questions about home, identity, and history and is a testament to how America fuses identity with place. What transforms a house into a family home? How do houses shape their inhabitants? What role does a Great House play in achieving the American Dream? Red House combines family lore with the pulse of real history.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Red House, built by Walter Hatch circa 1647, was one of the first houses in Marshfield, Mass., a coastal community some 30 miles south of Boston. Although it had been stipulated that the house would stay in the Hatch family, descendant Richard Hatch sold it to Messer's father in 1965, impressed with his respect for the property. While Messer didn't obsess over restoring the house to its "original" state, he approached all changes mindful of Red House history. And so the author (now a poet and teacher at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington) grew up in an oddly anachronistic household-with rag rugs instead of shag, Dutch ovens instead of electric ranges, wood instead of Formica. Daguerreotypes of 19th-century and photographs of 20th-century Hatches were carefully preserved; Hatch's original will was displayed on the wall. Although Messer felt like she was "growing up with someone else's history," this dual identity may have suggested her book's unusual form, which weaves Messer's story of growing up in Red House with the Hatch family's story. Her research into New England history unexpectedly fascinates (e.g., how 17th-century settlers would wear masks when carousing drunk to avoid identification; how they earmarked their communally grazing cattle). Beyond giving readers a sense of the liveliness of early New England life and explaining what it was like to grow up in a historic house, Messer gives readers a great sense of the power of a house to pull and shape its inhabitants. Agent, Amy Renner. (On sale June 21) Forecast: Local author events and national publicity will help market this book to lovers of quirky American history. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews