Author tells of surviving elements, inner battles in ‘Wild’
Still, Strayed’s storytelling in “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” does not resort to maudlin musings or sappy sentiments to hook her readers; she is honest in admitting her own shortcomings and less-than-stellar behavior. While she is angry and hurt, she does not blame others for her own failures. She does not pick and choose what to remember or share with us; instead, she airs all her dirty laundry (which, after miles and days without a shower, is literally quite a lot) and asks only that we accept her choices, whether we respect them or not.
Strayed is not the first person to have lost a parent, gotten a divorce or taken on a challenge, yet she writes with such skill that we do not dismiss her struggles as petty or common; her crisp language cuts to the heart of the matter (even in her own confusion). “I’d finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.”
“Wild” certainly found its way into my head.
Jami Carpenter is a freelance editor for Stephens Press, host and executive producer of Vegas PBS Book Club talk show and co-author of “Education in the Neon Shadow.”