A handmade wilderness

by Donald G. Schueler

In 1968, at the height of the civil rights struggle, two young men - one black, the other white - quixotically decided to buy eighty backwoods acres in southern Mississippi, little realizing that they were embarking on the greatest adventure of their lives. Don Schueler's account of the twenty-five years that followed, during which he and Willie Brown transformed and enlarged their much-abused "least worst land" into a wild Eden, is a modern saga, by turns suspenseful, wildly funny, and deeply moving. Hostile poachers, woods fires, and a monster hurricane were just some of the challenges Don and Willie faced. And two-footed and four-footed neighbors such as Hovit, the one-eyed moonshiner; the Downstairs Armadillo; the Cogitating Deer; the boy who loved horses; and Fafnir, the alligator, were only a few of the memorable characters who enlivened and sometimes complicated their lives. But perhaps the most unforgettably realized presence is that of the land itself, Don and Willie's beloved