A Foreign Correspondent Discovers Home
From a coup to crops, reporting to renovating, journalist Charles Eisendrath shares his adventures in new memoir.
Traverse City, Michigan—Some of the most memorable activities in his life are well documented. Serving as a TIME magazine correspondent in Washington, London, Paris, and bureau chief in Buenos Aires. The interview with a Chilean dictator after a bloody coup. Surviving a plane crash in Costa Rica. Founder of the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan. The “five minutes between meeting my wife, Julia, and knowing I was going to marry her.” It would be easy to be swept away in those almost-cinematic adventures. Instead, in Downstream from Here: A Foreign Correspondent Discovers Home, from Mission Point Press, Charles Eisendrath writes of what some might consider to be life’s smaller moments on a farm in East Jordan, Michigan, a northern town of about 2,300 residents, with the motto, “Where River, Lake, and Friendly People Meet.”
Of the home he captures in his expansive memoir, Eisendrath reflects on it being both a physical place and a state of mind. Purchased by his parents in 1944 when he was four years old, Overlook Farm is a sprawling 146 acres; because of timing issues, he and Julia took it over in 1972, and split their time between Ann Arbor and East Jordan.
Getting to know the land
“For the first few years as owner, I followed my parents’ experience of rarely visiting any part of the property much beyond the house and lakefront. Then I began a gradual exploration and new projects . . . a cherry orchard, a new route to the lake, an organic garden, then a butterfly garden, and, most recently, mapling,” he said. Changes were also made to the house itself as he decided what to keep from its nineteenth-century technology and what to add. “Each time, I weighed whether the project might violate the spirit of the place and took care that it didn’t. And also each time, discovering another aspect of the place meant discovering me.”
Downstream from Here shares Eisendrath’s personal stories in 28 essays, including “Two Bulldozers and Some Ghosts,” “Marriage on a Floundering Boat,” “A Chained Duck and a Patented Grill,” and “Life Power and Escape Techniques.” Jeff Daniels calls it “an amazing, beautifully written memoir. Prepare to be inspired,” while Christiane Amanpour proclaims it “the perfect holiday read, the balm to soothe the madness of our times.”
The end will take care of itself
Looking to the future, Eisendrath is expanding the marketing of Lake Charlevoix Maple, a syrup that he created by hand-tapping the trees for sap, boiling it over seasoned hardwood splits, and bottling it at Overlook Farm, to a “by-the-case gifting business from a shack in the woods direct to the internet.” With the syrup addressed, he plans to turn his attention to propagating pawpaw trees well beyond their natural range. All this after founding Grillworks, Inc., now owned by his son, Ben. The New York Times calls their grills, “the gold standard for wood-burning grills” for home and professional kitchens that honor the cooking rituals Eisendrath fell in love with while living in Argentina. For Eisendrath, life’s moments remain memorable.
For Downstream from Here readers who contemplate the possibility of penning their own story, Eisendrath suggested, “Don’t start writing the beginning of your story. Begin by writing about your favorite memory or your favorite person. That will tell you what you’ve got to say; add the beginning later and the end will take care of itself.”
The Author
Charles R. Eisendrath, a Yale graduate, left law school to follow his passion for journalism. He later founded Wallace House at the University of Michigan, home to the renowned Knight-Wallace Fellowships and the Livingston Awards, often called the “Pulitzer Prize for the young.” Eisendrath secured a $60 million endowment to sustain these initiatives. In addition, he founded Grillworks, Inc., where his patented grill helped revive America’s love for wood-fired cooking. He and his wife, Julia, divide their time between Ann Arbor and East Jordan, Michigan.
The Book
Downstream from Here: A Foreign Correspondent Discovers Home
Charles R. Eisendrath
296 pages; 6 x 9 inches; B/W
Journalist Life, Memoir, Michigan
ISBN: 978-1-965278-16-1, $18.95 (Softcover)
ISBN: 978-1-965278-17-8, $29.95 (Hardcover)
Mission Point Press, November 26, 2024
Copies are available in bookstores and online. For more information or to arrange for signings and events, contact the author at drath@umich.edu.