On The Free Farm: A Novel...Smith provides a unique window into Lee’s young life that is driven by idealism, love of Emerson and Thoreau, and devotion to his beautiful partner, who practices Zen, meditates, and can fix cars….In this realistic yet often surprising and tender novel, a quoted line from 'The Waking' by Theodore Roethke serves as a guidepost: 'I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow/ I feel my fate in what I cannot fear/ I learn by going where I have to go.' ”