Preview of Only Children Summary:

One of the most notable and continuous themes in Only Children is that of the pastoral escape. The Hubbards and Zimmerns are escaping to the country for a weekend, and the setting plays an important part in their magical regression. Anna King's farm is not simply rural, it is intentionally rustic. She is a lady Thoreau, or as Bill describes her, a "pioneer." She embodies the American ideal of self-reliance—growing her own food, cutting her own wood, and choosing solitude over dependence. Her ties to the natural world are vital, in Mary Ann's mind, even magical. Anna nurtures the green life around her, and is loved in return: "Virginia [creeper] loving Anna's house, surrounding it holding it hugging it safe forever.

Green-veined soft hands, hundreds of them ... Love. Because everything growing here loves Anna." One might be reminded, while reading Only Children, of novels like Frances...