Acres and Pains

Acres and Pains

<p><em>If you can spare the time to drive sixty miles into the backwoods of eastern Pennsylvania, crouch down in a bed of poison ivy, and peer through the sumacs, you will be rewarded by an interesting sight. What you will see is a middle-aged city dweller, as lean and bronzed as a shad's belly (I keep a shad's belly hanging up in the barn for purposes of comparison), gnawing his fingernails and wondering how to abandon a farm.</em></p><p>Thus begins <strong>Acres and Pains</strong>, S.J. Perelman's unique testament to the joys and tribulations of country living. <strong>Acres and Pains</strong> describes the purchase and transformation of the Perelman property, Rising Gorge, as our hero transforms himself from city lazybones to country squire.</p><p>Eudora Welty called S.J. Perelman "a National Treasure." </p>