Review of "Builder's Apprentice"

As a full-time graduate student, I have found reading for fun a rare treat. More often than not, I have five times the amount of assigned academic reading than I have time to finish, so novels and stories are pushed to the back of my bookshelf where they gather dust, waiting for summer vacation or graduation. Recently, however, one of my professors, Andy Hoffman, announced that he was publishing a novel about his experiences in the green building sector. His marketing campaign consisted of emailing students and faculty in the field and asking if they’d read the book and review it online or on Twitter, etc; in exchange he would give us a free autographed copy. The word “FREE” works magic on graduate students. I immediately responded that I’d be happy to read a book for fun, for free, that might be relevant to my schoolwork, too.

Disclaimer: Reviewing a book for a current professor might be considered a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, I am honest when I say that I enjoyed the reading very much!

Anyway, Builder’s Apprentice was a welcome break from journal articles and case studies. It’s a light read. The book is quite simply a memoir of Andy’s years as a high-end house builder. He does not spend time developing details of his personal life or his life prior to construction when he used to be a professional engineer. Instead, Andy jumps right into a moment of dissatisfaction and his impulse decision to leave everything he has and join a construction crew in Nantucket. I found the stories fascinating, both for the weird juxtaposition of my current professor with this much younger, freer spirit, and for the adventures of his work. By page 40, I already couldn’t look at a concrete slab in the same way. By the end of the 325-page book, I was eyeing the woodwork around my windows, the floorboards and tile patterns with admiration. For Andy, construction is as much about beauty and architecture as it is about rugged and macho men.

Builder’s Apprentice is supposed to be about the challenges of shedding one’s prescribed path (engineering school for Andy) in favor of passion and calling. Although the theme resurfaces throughout the book, I nonetheless appreciated more the simple, incredible tales of beauty and diligence. At times, inspirational aphorisms seem thrust upon the reader, whereas Andy’s stories stand easily on their own to detail his passion and drive. Andy’s world is unique enough to fascinate. The book doesn’t need a larger theme to unite it.

That should remain true for anyone, not just graduate students interested in green design like me. (The book has nothing to do with sustainability, FYI—and in fact, given the scale of the mansions Andy builds, is more about opulence than conservation. Where it was useful to me, however, came in understanding the tensions between architect, contractor, subcontractors, and owner. A key point that Andy teaches now is the importance of an integrated process: this book shows that the process is often anything but.) The book gives vitality to elements of the average home, elements that I never bothered to think twice about. It’s like Intermediate Habitat for Humanity. I remember volunteering at Habitat houses in high school and struggling to cut baseboard and hang doors. Now Andy walks me through those steps again, embellishing with anecdotes and his own fears and bewilderment. In the end, although Andy’s world is no longer anything like my own, I feel as though I’ve learned to build a house at the same time he has; I’ve learned to appreciate the ruthlessness of manual labor and the fierce art of design. It’s not a world I desire to enter, and the characters aren’t people I’d call friends, but the stories are fascinating and the reading goes quickly.

Builder’s Apprentice may not be classic literature, but if you want a lighthearted, easy glance into how the other half lives (or the other two-thirds, if you count the wealthy homeowners as well as the itinerant carpenters), Andy’s book certainly pulls through.