Born on the West Coast to middle class means, but having given up a traditional career and life path for a vagabond existence years before, Sarah explains Lake Max through her eyes fresh from the Occupy Wall Street movement. While learning to enjoy a summer of semi-luxury (surrounded by workers and construction noise all summer we will admit!) and reasoning some of her complex feelings on class in America, she appreciated what the early comers like the Vonneguts in the 1890s were trying to create for themselves.
The book interlaces her experiences in the house with a researched history of the house, area, and extended families; the Vonnegut, Schnull and Mueller Families who constructed and inhabited the five homes along the bluff from the late 1880s through the first 50 years or more of the homes’ existences. This family history included Kurt Vonnegut himself (whose father Bernard owned the yellow home to our North and designed perhaps all the homes through their 1920s renovations, including ours), who by his own admission ranged across all the houses with regularity, along with all his siblings and cousins, “like a Tornado” in Vonnegut’s words. There are deeply researched anecdotes and even some love stories that took place on Lake Max; the old stories creating an engaging and nostalgic offset to the ‘wham wham wham,’ ‘drill drill drill,’ and ‘takin’ care of business’ beat of Sarah’s time at the house in the summer of 2013.
She makes fun of the contemporary scene with some restraint and shares her and Garth’s frustrations and satisfactions before a surprise departure. All names were changed to protect the innocent, and while a few people did get bent out of shape by their characterization, Sarah admitted to a little editorial license (but there also may be some inability to deal with the true fiction from some of the ‘fictional’ characters out there). Again, there is no story without controversy!
All in all, The Clemens Vonnegut Jr. House is proud of Sarah’s effort and immensely appreciates the work she and Garth put into the house. Their honesty and efforts laid the groundwork for our future success, and we enjoy the book too, recommending it as the kind of fun read you’d take to a week-long vacation at a beautifully restored old lake house where you have some time to relax!
“Renovating Vonnegut: How a Black Sheep Opened The Side Door to High Society” by Sarah Handyside is available a few places online that we can find:
Renovating Vonnegut on Amazon
Renovating Vonnegut on Nook
There also appears to be a copy in the Culver-Union Township Public Library in Downtown Culver:
Renovating Vonnegut at CUTPL
Check it out, or get it while it’s hot!
