One must visit Callum Robinson's website to assess his manifest talent as a woodworker, but on the evidence of his passionate, insightful memoir, Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman, he has built the foundation for a successful second career as a writer.
Along with his wife, Marisa, a "disillusioned architectural designer" and teacher, Robinson owned a woodworking business near Edinburgh. Ingrained describes the crisis they endured after 10 years of operation when a commercial client suddenly cancelled a large project and they found themselves devoid of work, "unhappily floundering in the hottest of water."
Callum and Marisa gambled on a storefront in the small town of Linlithgow to display their wares. Ingrained describes in intimate detail the highs and lows of that venture into retail commerce and the unexpected discoveries about business and the life it yielded. Robinson deepens the account of his and Marisa's tenacious battle with glimpses of the episodes that led him to a life in woodworking.
Those who look at furniture as nothing more than dead trees transformed into utilitarian objects should be disabused of that perception by Robinson's prose. He eloquently conveys his deeply personal attachment to hardwoods like the "rich, golden" oak, "ghostly, almost luminescent" sycamore, and, above all, the elm--the "tenacious swaggering dandy of the forest"--that he and his employees shape into exquisite pieces. For Robinson, fashioning tables and desks by hand is the calling of a lifetime, not merely a job.
Anyone who enjoyed Tracy Kidder's House or Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft will admire this book as much as they might one of Callum Robinson's lovingly-crafted products. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer