Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman

When Hutchison (a writer for Outside, Wired, and other magazines) purchased a run-down 120-foot cabin in the Cascade Mountains, he immediately felt both that he had done something significant with his life and that he had committed himself to something he wasn’t remotely qualified for. This account of restoring the cabin summons the spirit of Paul Doiron’s Mike Bowditch mysteries. Patrick is unapologetically flummoxed and relentless in his quest for completion, with a “fix it now, ask questions later” approach that is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny: consider his dilemma over drills and the interchangeable batteries in multi-tools, his ode to his first car, a 1986 Honda Accord, and his complete confusion over how the physics of gas cans have changed over time. The mudslide chapters are heartbreaking, in the same way the kitchen chapters are victorious. Readers might find the chapter on foraging for mushrooms in the woods superfluous, and just as they’re feeling at home in the cabin, it’s time to let it go, which makes the ending feel a little rushed.