Homosteading at the 19th Parallel: One Man's Adventures Building His Nightmare Dream House on the Big Island of Hawaii

A man from Arizona buys a piece of land in the middle of a lava field while vacationing in Hawaii and returns to the island to find a deeper sense of home and build his midlife crisis tropical dream house.

In this assemblage of journal entries during the trying year of construction, the author tells some of the secrets of rural Hawaii, revealing her dark underbelly. Meet the crazy neighbors in Puna’s “open-air asylum,” go on late night lava walks, join a lynch mob against the coqui frogs, and find the true meaning of ‘aloha’ in the jungle. “What do you do when you’ve run away from home—again—and you still want to keep running? This is a story of a relationship, not with just a house, but with a vision of home. I could have read twice as long a book with as much excitement—it was heartbreaking and hilarious to watch Gilmore’s poignant love affair disintegrate. As a reader, I was rooting for the love affair to last, and I was stubbornly optimistic when it didn’t … but finally, he realizes one night, while holding his dog and swinging in the hammock, that he has built a perfect home in paradise—for someone else.” —Gillian Kendall, author of Mr. Ding’s Chicken Feet “… I laughed myself silly and my mouth dropped open in amazement. The man is a true original.” —David Henry Sterry, author of Chicken, Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent