“Arresting . . . So many heal-myself memoirs are available that initially I hesitated about [Wild]. Then I considered the source: Cheryl Strayed, the author of a lyric yet tough-minded first novel [called] Torch—a Great Lakes Book Award finalist . . . Wild [is] Strayed’s account of her 1,100-mile solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert to Washington State. Shattered at 26 by her mother’s death, her family’s fragmenting, and the end of her marriage, Strayed upped and decided to do something way out of the realm of her experience; here she confronts snowstorms and rattlesnakes even as she confronts her personal pain. Wish I had her guts!”
Barbara Hoffert, LibraryJournal.com
“This is a big, brave, break-your-heart-and-put-it-back-together-again kind of book. Cheryl Strayed is a courageous, gritty, and deceptively elegant writer. She walked the PCT to find forgiveness, came back with generosity—and now she shares her reward with us. I snorted with laughter, I wept uncontrollably; I don’t even want to know the person who isn’t going to love Wild. This is a beautifully made, utterly realized book.”
Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted and Cowboys Are My Weakness
“A courageous and transforming journey—spirit and body.”
Ursula Hegi, author of Stones from the River
“Spectacular!”
Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Giant's House
“No one can write like Cheryl Strayed. Wild is one of the most unflinching and emotionally honest books I've read in a long time. It is about forgiveness and grief and bravery and hope. It is unforgettable.”
Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle
"While reading Cheryl Strayed’s stunning book about her arduous solo journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, I kept asking myself—what would I do if I were stripped bare of everything—money, job, community, even family and love? Thoreau once said, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” For Strayed, it is clear that in wildness was the preservation of her soul. She reminds us, in her lyrical and courageous memoir Wild, of what it means to be fully alive, even in the face of catastrophe, physical and psychic hardship and loss."
Mira Bartok, author of The Memory Palace
“Cheryl Strayed can sure tell a story. In Wild, she describes her journey from despair to transcendence with honesty, humor, and heart-cracking poignancy. This is a great book.”
Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Seeking Peace
“Cheryl Strayed is one of the most exciting writers I’ve come across in a long time.”
Hope Edelman, author of The Possibility of Everything and Motherless Daughters
“Smart, funny, and often sublime, Wild has something for everyone—a fight for survival in the wilderness, a bad girl’s quest for redemption—all in the hands of a brilliant and evocative writer.”
Chelsea Cain, author of The Night Season and Heartsick
“Stunning . . . An incredible journey, both inward and outward.”
Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
"A candid, inspiring narrative of the author’s brutal physical and psychological journey through a wilderness of despair to a renewed sense of self," Kirkus Reviews, starred review (12/19/2011).
Cheryl Strayed on the Pacific Crest Trail in southern California, June 1995.
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she'd lost everything when her mother died young of cancer. Her family scattered in their grief, her marriage was soon destroyed, and slowly her life spun out of control. Four years after her mother's death, with nothing more to lose, Strayed made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker--indeed, she'd never gone backpacking before her first night on the trail. Her trek was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone. Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and intense loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
Wild will also be published in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Italy.
"Strayed proves a master of the little and the big…There is throughout the novel a perfectly tuned ear. Combined with her empathic skills, she has transformed these familiar themes into an irresistibly engaging debut read."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Claude Peck
"A heartbreaking anatomy of one family's grief...Beautifully written and authentic."
People Magazine, Maria Speidel
"This novelist goes fearlessly into this place of raw grief and inappropriate lust and desperate love and simply reports what she sees: These are people who…live dense, perplexing, fascinating and authentic lives."
The Washington Post Book World, Carolyn See
"A deeply honest novel of life after catastrophe, of intimacy lost and found."
O, the Oprah magazine, Cathleen Medwick
"A deeply moving tale...Strayed's descriptions of her characters lives, where and how they live, what they remember, and what they wish to forget ring true and clear and make this novel an unforgettable read."
Library Journal (starred review)
"Strayed has a gift of getting to the core of the human condition without artifice. The reader weeps for the loss of this dynamic woman and wants to knock some sense into the survivors who are falling apart at the seams. Like Jane Smiley, Strayed effectively taps into the psyche of midwestern America, and her evocative prose leaves an indelible mark. A hauntingly beautiful story written with tenderness and endowed with true insights into the frailty of relationships."
Kirkus (starred review)
"Beautifully observed…Strayed's characters are real and lovable, even as they fail themselves and each other; even tertiary players feel fully realized. Though the subject is sad, the novel is not without humor; it shimmers with a humane grace."
Publishers Weekly
"Torch is a steady stream of finely wrought portrayals of nuance, moments and emotions….lovely turns of phrase are coupled with subtle and keen observations and truisms that remind a reader why she reads."
New York Newsday, Daphne Uviller
"Strayed…has a light hand, delivering emotional scenes with a journalistic eye, picking out the important details without resorting to purple prose…very moving."
The San Francisco Chronicle, Reyhan Harmanci
"It's a beautiful book, expansive in its treatment of tragedy and grief, but equally attentive to all of the most telling details. The language is lovely, offering delicious, compelling imagery without being heavy-handed."
Providence Journal, Beth Schwartzapfel
"Strayed’s Torch is an amazing feat…This is autobiographical fiction at its best…an exquisite, powerful novel."
Portland Tribune, Ellison G. Weist
"Strayed knows how to balance the heartache with humor, and the spiritual with the mundane, to create characters you begin to know like friends."
Pages Magazine
"Strayed addresses this universal theme with skill and unflinching compassion by creating exceptionally believable characters…The details are precise, understated and devastating…The metaphors are original and rich…In short, this is a very moving and accomplished novel."
Bookreporter.com, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol
Photo by Robbie McClaran
Teresa Rae Wood is a waitress and something of a local celebrity in the town of Midden, Minnesota. Her popular radio show, Modern Pioneers!, is an eternal embarrassment to her two children, Claire and Joshua, and a source of amused pride to her common-law husband, Bruce. When Teresa summons Claire and Joshua home unexpectedly, they are floored by her news: Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer. In a few weeks, she is gone.
Now the mundane irritations and small betrayals of family relationships loom dangerously large, as Claire, Joshua, and Bruce -- isolated in grief just when they need each other most -- seek comfort elsewhere. To his children's disbelief, Bruce quickly marries their neighbor from the farm next door. Claire obstinately protects her mother's memory, while Joshua drifts beyond her reach.
Strayed has a pitch-perfect ear for the large passions and careless cruelties that families inflict on each other in times of crisis. The intimate portraits of these fully human characters reveal exacting truths about grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.
