Issue #14: Wild
Thoughts on a thrilling memoir, inspiring our own individual adventures and personal journeys
Book Review
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Her threadbare, aching heart drives her to this solitary journey: something in her calling, something in her pausing, something in her careening past all “sense” and into this essential, harrowing, healing journey.
Audio version: Kate reads this article to you!
Book information and ratings:
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail | by Cheryl Strayed, 2012 | |
Genre: | Nonfiction: memoir, creative |
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Subject: | Self discovery | |
Rating: | Worth the read! | |
Read as: | Audiobook | |
Readability: | Accessible | |
Subject Weight: | Moderate | |
How I found this book:
Julie said it was one of her favorites: that this book spoke to her, gave her a lifeline, and crept into her soul. I had to read it! (And, if you’ve only seen the movie, you have to read it, too—there is no comparison!)
About this book:
The book starts off with every hiker’s worst nightmare:
The trees were tall, but I was taller, standing above them on a steep mountain slope in northern California. Moments before, I’d removed my hiking boots and the left one had fallen into those trees, first catapulting into the air when my enormous backpack toppled onto it, then skittering across the gravelly trail and flying over the edge. It bounced off of a rocky outcropping several feet beneath me before disappearing into the forest canopy below, impossible to retrieve.
So, there she is. At the top of a mountain. With one shoe.
Oh. My. God. I thought as I was listening. What would you do? Maybe find some bark to strap to your foot and hobble back down the mountain?...And, before I could come up with any other “brilliant” solutions to her problem, she’s hurling the second boot after the first, with anger and defiance…
Oh, great! I thought, Now you’ve got to make TWO bark shoes!!
****
If you are a backpacker, this book is for you!
If you’re not a backpacker, this book is for you!
Because, backpacking is only the vehicle for this enduringly vivid and intensely raw personal journey.
****
After losing her 45-year-old mother to lung cancer, which then resulted in losing her stepfather to a new family, her brother and sister to their personal grief, and her marriage to her own infidelity and drug addictions, Cheryl (age 22) decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail the summer of 1995. Alone.
She is gutsy–and wildly unprepared for her trip. Even though she spent months researching and planning for it, she had never actually backpacked before…and the learning curve is steep and vital.
Her threadbare, aching heart drives her to this solitary journey: something in her calling, something in her pausing, something in her careening past all “sense” and into this essential, harrowing, healing journey.
****
Besides this gripping hook at the beginning of the book, this is the most intriguing and accurate telling of a backpacker’s experience I’ve ever read. I say this as a “seasoned veteran” of several four-day backpacking trips with my husband (the longest of which covered 50 miles, thank you very much!). But, that is nothing compared to Cheryl’s 1,100 mile journey over 94 days from the Mojave desert to Washington state.
There were quite a few things specific to backpacking that I found wonderfully relatable:
how your eyes glue to the trail, one foot and then another, ignoring all discomfort and pain (I call this Zombie Mode)
how, with your feet programmed to the trail, your mind spins freely, program-less
how the strangest snippets of songs play in your head, shuffling through or on constant repeat
how the trail feels known, the pines familiar, the wildflowers friendly–and the vistas become your personal sanctuaries
how you think, “I can’t climb THAT!” But, then, take one step and then another until you’ve done it
how the ridiculously thin fabric of your tent makes you feel safe
how you grow to hate trail food and crave fresh or deep fried anything!
how any human contact is a celebration followed by instant camaraderie
and how pumping water through a purifier is an unexpectedly hard chore…
****
This modern-day adventure begins with her pain-filled heart, and continues through her aching shoulders and hips, to her blistered feet, and dry cracked lips. She brings you along through it all: the uncertainty, the danger, the doggedness, the weight, the weather, the sweat, the dirt, the friends, and the healing.
Also, this is 1995. She doesn’t have a cell phone, satellite phone, or a solar-charged battery pack. She also doesn’t have fancy zip-off pants or soft shells, or hammocks that fold up pocket-sized, or microfiber towels, or freeze-dried meals in mylar bags. Her survival depends on boxes she packed with food, supplies, and money, and which her friend periodically mails to the ranger stations along her route. She uses payphones to make collect calls and begs rides from strangers–and finds how terrifyingly essential it is that the boxes show up at the right place at the right time…
She also highlights an interesting dichotomy: that as a young woman traveling alone she was very vulnerable, but she also received much kindness and consideration from others for that exact reason. (This inspires her trail nickname, but you’ll have to find out what that is for yourself.)
****
The author weaves her background story into her experience on the trail so seamlessly–it is colorful and compelling on many levels. And, I can’t help but think how gutsy it was of the author to not only take this journey in the first place, but also to dive back into it years later. I’m so glad she did. The later perspective adds much to the retelling, but it doesn’t keep her from sharing it raw and real.
****
In the end?
“How wild it was to let it be.”
About the author:
Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. Her bestselling collection of Dear Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things, was adapted for a Hulu television show and as a play that continues to be staged in theaters nationwide. Strayed's other books are the critically acclaimed novel, Torch, and the bestselling collection Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes. Her books have sold more than 5 million copies around the world and have been translated into forty languages. Her award-winning essays and short stories have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, and elsewhere. Strayed has also made two hit podcasts, Dear Sugars, which she co-hosted with Steve Almond, and Sugar Calling. She lives in Portland, Oregon. cherylstrayed.com
Sources:
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Narrated by Bernadette Dunne, Books on Tape, 2012. Audiobook.
*This is issue #14 of The Book Moth Newsletter
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