Southeast Missouri State University Press

Back to Catalog

This House, This Town: One Couple’s Love Affair with an Old House and a Historic Town

Robert Hamblin

Publication: 2010
Pages: 176

“I read This House, This Town at one sitting, something I rarely do. The book is like a faceted diamond that you turn round and round, so that the light keeps falling on the varied colors and dazzlements of the jewel. Its center is the grasping, roving imagination of Bob Hamblin that sets one perspective after another on fire. After awhile, the reader rushes a bit toward the section endings, because one has been taught to anticipate finding calm elegance there.” Jay Martin, author of Journey to Heavenly Mountain

“Beautifully crafted, with a structure that reminds one of Thoreau’s Walden, Bob Hamblin’s This House, This Town is an incredibly moving synthesis of history, personalities, places, family love and lore of a house, a city, a river, and a couple still very much in love with life and with each other.” William L. Frank, editor of The Fictional World of William Hoffman

---

Robert Hamblin is a Professor of English and Director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University, where he has taught since 1965. He has published poetry, short stories, personal essays, and scholarly articles in numerous books and journals. In 2003 he and his wife Kaye purchased and moved into a large Victorian house in downtown Cape Girardeau. This House, This Town tells the story of their restoration of the house and their immersion in the history of Old Town Cape.