Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994                   TAG: 9409270140
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by JOAN V. SCHROEDER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VIRGINIA WRITER ASKS WHAT WE KEEP, AND WHY

Peter Svenson lives in the Shenandoah Valley near Cross Keys, where he farms, paints, writes and plays the piano. On his 40 acres, the site of a minor Civil War battle, he has learned to produce and sell hay, build houses and play "Dixie" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" on his "venerable" Mason and Hamlin.

His land has also inspired him to write good books, including "Battlefield," a National Book Award nominee, in which Svenson shared his knowledge of Civil-War history and farming. In his second book, Peter Svenson stakes out larger territory: to define for himself and for his readers the nature and process of preservation. "What do we keep and why do we keep it? ... This is what I've pondered recently," he writes in the introduction of "Preservation."

In the pages that follow, the reader is treated to a leisurely wandering through the author's childhood, firmly rooted in the booming economy and mushrooming suburbs of post-war America. Svenson's family moved frequently, and lived in places as diverse as New York City and a scrub farm in Rhode Island. No matter where Svenson lived, or how old he was, his insatiable curiosity made life one big adventure.

We're treated to wonderful vignettes of Svenson's childhood like the one he tells about going into the sandpaper business at the tender age of 7, using sand from a nearby deserted sand pit. "We used sheets of my mother's best typing paper and a bottle of mucilage to make the prototypes. Needless to say, there was a lot of leftover sand. In our spare time, we fashioned miniature canoes from the ghostly peelings of birch."

He pondered the architecture of bridges, loved the borrowed piano and the Museum of Natural History, rebuilt his basement with an eye toward an art-framing business. As a student at Tufts, he was determined to become a writer - and found himself assigned to English F, the section for functional illiterates." (One wonders if Svenson has been able to resist sending copies of his books to his curmudgeonly instructor, Mr. Finkter.)

Now, he takes joy in the smallest details of his antique tractors, the piles of abstract paintings in his studio, serving as self-proclaimed king of his hand-built pond, rolling closed the heavy doors of his hay-laden barn, and writing.

Peter Svenson is at heart a quintessential American writer. In "Preservation," he presents a delightfully detailed portrait of entrepreneurial ingenuity and a determination to be successful in whatever is undertaken, be it producing hay or abstract paintings. Laid against the backdrop of our landscape and our history, the story of Peter Svenson's first 50 years leaves one quite certain that the next 50 will be just as engaging.

Joan V. Schroeder's first novel, "Solitary Places," will be published soon.