<div dir="ltr"><div>All,</div><div>Please find attached and below Judith Hakola's review of Angie Abdou, <i>This one wild life.</i></div><div>Thanks</div><div>Duncan <br></div><div> </div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center"><span> </span>Book Review: <i>This One Wild Life: A
Mother-Daughter Wilderness Memoir<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center"><span> </span>by Angie Abdou<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center">reviewed by Judy
Hakola, University of Maine (retired)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Memoirs as a genre provide readers with very specific and
personal lenses through which they learn about certain aspects and events in the
lives of the memoirists. So it is important to understand the kind of lens through
which the story they are reading will be filtered. In the case of Angie Abdou’s
<i>This One Wild Life: A Mother-Daughter Wilderness Memoir</i>, an incident early
in the book that describes the birth of her daughter, Katie, gives us a clue.
Preparing for that final push that will expel her daughter, Abdou says, “A
long-distance swimmer with decades of under-water swimming practice, I could
hold my breath for a very long time”—so long and so intensely, in fact, that she
forgot to breathe during that final stage and Katie was born oxygen-deprived
and spent her first two days in an incubator. This writer is not an easy-going
person.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Although the ostensible subject of this memoir is Abdou’s
attempt to help her daughter overcome her shyness by developing her competence
and persistence by hiking the mountains near their Fernie, British Columbia,
home, the real subject, as with all memoirs, is Abdou herself. Abdou is an
intense competitor by nature and training, and her approach to these hikes is
to reach the top—to conquer the mountain. Just as Katie has to learn to be more
confident when facing a challenge, so her mother has to learn to be less
competitive—to turn hiking from a competitive sport with winners and thus
losers to recreation when recreation equals re-creation and nothing is at
stake. It’s a distinction that will be well understood by SLA members and a
lesson that Abdou learns as well. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">That lesson begins early in the book when, deeply stressed
by a series of very nasty social media attacks, she looks out her window one
morning at an ordinary cottonwood tree in her yard (which her husband jokingly
disparages as “the weed of the forest”) and feels “its positivity flooding in
like sunlight. Its branches reached out to me . . . . the massive tree embraced
me with unconditional love.” Yes, she is projecting her own need onto the tree,
but the point is that–unlike those attacking her on social media, her family,
her friends and no-longer-friends, and her readers—the tree expects nothing of
her, is not judging her. It just is. Later, she analyzes her habit of using her
running time to think through her writing projects, working out character, plot
development and other writing issues but totally oblivious to the environment
through which she is running, head down, shoulders hunched. Eventually she
realizes that the natural environment cannot help her if she does not
consciously admit it into her life so she begins to run with her head up and
shoulders back, breathing deeply and actually looking at the places where she
is running. But these are all personal decisions. The more complex ones develop
when she proposes Katie that they undertake a peak-a-week, mother-daughter
bonding experience during the summer between Katie’s third and fourth grades. The
plan is complicated by a number of factors, but ultimately it turns out to more
of a parenting challenge than a physical challenge. Time and again Abdou must
figure out when and how to keep Katie going to reach the summit, and eventually
to decide when <i>not</i> reaching the summit is a better outcome. Although the
objective originally is Abdou’s aim to give Katie more mother-daughter time and
to overcome her shyness when outside her family, again and again Abdou must
face the question of “Whose goal is this anyway?” <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">To be worth reading, a successful memoir must offer readers
more than a focused look at a slice of the author’s life. “What can <i>I </i>get
out of this book?” is a legitimate question for any reader. In the case of
readers who are neither parents of young children nor avid hikers, reading <i>This
One Wild Life</i> is still worthwhile. It raises many issues of interest to SLA
members and readers in general. The matter of both the value and the drawbacks
of competitiveness is obviously one, but Abdou’s thoughtful observations on
writing are another. For example, in describing the week-long hiking-camping
trip on the Juan de Fuco trail that she took with her husband and their two
children, she calls it a success <i>as a trip</i> because “Nothing happened”—no
sprained ankles, no encounters with angry bears, just lots of immersion in the
natural world. But things happening is essential for a successful story, and
Abdou is a storyteller. Storytelling is how she figures out things, yet she
acknowledges that shaping a narrative, even a narrative of “true” events, is
almost always a form of manipulating what happened to make it a good story, and
once that narrative is in print (or its electronic equivalent), it takes on a
life of its own. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Abdou also takes on matters of more philosophical interest
such as the drawback of always looking ahead (as in planning to get to the peak
of a mountain) rather than being “in the now” (as in enjoying the trip toward
the peak for its own sake). During the time covered in <i>This One Wild Life</i>,
Abdou tells us, “I have learned a new way of writing, one that involves less
urgency and less stress . . . . Now, I think of writing [and one can assume
living] as an intense form of listening. I remain open to possibilities. I let
the process lead me.” <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">A slight distraction in the overall progress of the story is
caused by Abdou’s decision to frequently devote whole paragraphs to
professional sources she has consulted when looking for expert information on topics
such as shyness, father-daughter relationships, endorphins, and a dozen others.
(Happily, there are no footnotes, just a four-page reading list at the end of
the book.) As she tells us, she is a researcher trained to look to expert sources
for answers, but these sudden breaks in the narrative, although topically
relevant, affect the flow of her otherwise skillful storytelling. But that is a
slight quibble; otherwise, the book is insightful and enjoyable to read.<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Abdou is a complex, multi-talented person with her share of
quirks and hang-ups. But, more importantly, she is a <i>thoughtful person</i>,
and time spent with her will certainly offer much to ponder for equally
thoughtful readers. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">NOTE: This review is based on the pre-publication copy; the
book is scheduled for publication in April 2021. <span></span></p>
</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past<br><br>Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.<br>Professor of History<br>Book Review Editor<br><i>AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature</i><br>Ashland University<br>Ashland, OH 44805<br>USA<br></div></div></div></div>