Release Date: February 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-947917-81-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945369
Published by: Fomite

SYNOPSIS

The year is 1968 and idealistic anti-war activists David and Jill, hoping to refocus their efforts to build a new society, have moved to an abandoned hill farm in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom to start a commune. Joined by a rotating cast of committed activists and fair-weather freeloaders alike, David and Jill are confronted by the harsh environment of northern Vermont, where they discover the complexities of country life, make connections with their new neighbors (good and bad), and struggle to find their place until the fissures blowing apart the larger anti-war movement reach their collective at Zion Farm. Sugaring Down burrows below the surface of the sixties counterculture and the New Left to explore the contradictions and passions that lead to the implosion of the protagonists’ dreams and their turns down two very different paths.

Sugaring Down is an evocative and reflective story that examines the dynamics of social change, the violent flux of opposing political systems, and the history and nature of Vermont.

Praise

“Sugaring Down whisks us back to the late 1960s, another turbulent time in American history when the personal and the political were deeply entwined. The winds of change have swept up David and Jill, a couple who make very different choices in their resistance to the war raging in Vietnam. With his vivid depictions of communal life in Vermont and the radical underground in New York City, Chodorkoff has delivered a mythic tale of love, revolution, and redemption.”

–Susan Ritz, author of A Dream to Die For

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“In Sugaring Down Dan Chodorkoff tells the story of a young couple, of the communal days of 1968 and 1969, of political passions and of a Vermont landscape that exists in its own weathered right. The notion of revolution that animates the young communards has become distant but that is all the more reason to read this compelling, deeply felt novel. Historical moments exert enormous pressure; people make fateful decisions. At the same time, Chodorkoff shows us a world whose natural rhythms cast an almost timeless spell. The northern Vermont village he writes of is to some eyes a nowhere but in Chodorkoff’s hands it feels remarkable—an essence that speaks to dark perplexities and calm, sun-blessed mornings.”

–Baron Wormser, author of The Road Washes Out in Spring

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“When I read Dan Chodorkoff's historically vivid Vermont novel, I thought of Faulkner's famous statement: ‘The past is never dead. It's not even past.’ Sugaring Down takes place in America in the turbulent 60s, when the Vietnam war was malignantly in our communal hearts and minds. But Chodorkoff's story is also about the friendships and fateful decisions we made in our flurried passions, at the same time hauntingly sensed that we may never again feel quite so alive.”

–Howard Norman, author of The Ghost Clause

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“While Sugaring Down is a novel, it reads much like a memoir. It takes care to describe the political movements and thinking of the late 1960s, and its dialogue is peppered with expressions of the times (people are “lit up”; situations are “out of sight” and “far out”). Local history is covered by Leland and Mary, who are veteran farmers and Vermont natives. Their clear love of their home leads to sensuous descriptions of sparkling snow, bursting flower buds, and green hills. Despite all of this beauty, the characters’ disputes become insurmountable, leading to a split in the group. There are detrimental results—both for those who turn to a more radical path, and for society at large. David’s measured reasoning comes to seem necessary to the success of his group’s revolutionary ideas. Marked by tragedy and regret, Sugaring Down is an engaging historical novel set among well-intentioned activists during the 1960s.”

—Brandee Gruener, Clarion Reviews

Reviews & In the News

StoryComic Podcast, March 19, 2023: Episode 25 Vermont Artists and Authors: Dan Chodorkoff, Author of ‘Sugaring Down’

Burlington Free Press, July 4, 2022: Settle into a summer vibe with one (or more) of these new Vermont books

Times Argus, January 23, 2022: Chodorkoff’s 'Sugaring Down' is a new take on self-reliance

NewPages, January 21, 2022: A New Novel of a Tempestuous Time

Foreword Reviews, November 2, 2021: Sugaring Down: a novel.

About the Author