Out of the woods : a memoir of wayfinding

Title:

Author:

Darling, Lynn

ISBN:

9780061710247

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

270 pages ; 22 cm

Personal Subject:

Darling, Lynn.

Subject Term:

Middle-aged women -- United States -- Biography.

Widows -- United States -- Biography.

Women journalists -- United States -- Biography.

Life change events

Solitude

Adjustment (Psychology)

Self-actualization (Psychology)

Geographic Term:

Woodstock (Vt.) -- Biography.

Woodstock (Vt.) -- Social life and customs.

Summary:

When her college-bound daughter leaves home, Lynn Darling, widowed over a decade earlier, finds herself alone--and utterly lost, with no idea of what she wants or even who she is. Searching for answers, she leaves New York for the solitary woods of Vermont. Removed from the familiar, cocooned in the natural world, her only companions a new dog and a compass, she hopes to develop a sense of direction--both in the woods and in her life. Hiking unmapped trails, Darling meditates on the milestones of her past; as she adapts to her new surroundings, she uses the knowledge she's gained to chart her future. And when an unexpected setback nearly derails her newfound balance, she is able to draw upon her newfound skills to find her bearings and stay the course.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	921 DARLING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	921 DARLING	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Combining the soul-baring insight of Wild, the profound wisdom of Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the adventurous spirit of Eat, Pray, Love: Lynn Darling's powerful, lyrical memoir of self-discovery, full of warmth and wry humor, Out of the Woods.

Hiking unmapped trails, Darling meditates on the milestones of her past; as she adapts to her new surroundings, she uses the knowledge she's gained to chart her future. And when an unexpected setback nearly derails her newfound balance, she is able to draw upon her newfound skills to find her bearings and stay the course.

In revealing how one woman learned to navigate--literally and metaphorically--the uneven course of life, Out of the Woods is, in the words of Pulitzer-prize winning author Geraldine Brooks, "a marvelous book . . . both a compass and a manifesto for navigating the often-treacherous switchbacks of the second half of life."

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In a radiant, brave memoir, Darling, a journalist and memoirist (Necessary Sins), recalls a difficult time shortly after her daughter goes off to college and Darling moves from New York City to the remote woods of Woodstock, Vt. A widow in her mid-'50s, Darling finds the woods around her small, eclectic house at the end of the road inviting yet frightening, and soon learns how "directionally challenged" she is-thus vulnerable. Having fled her life in the city out of a sense of failure and shame, she admits that she no longer knows what map of her life . She turns to a point by point "metaphysical" to-do list, including "get sense of direction; find authentic way to live; figure out how to be old; deal with sex; learn Latin." With her companion a yellow Lab puppy she named Henry, and occasionally help from wilderness experts-or a compass and a map-Darling embarks on a clarifying journey of self-navigation. Despite being sidetracked by cancer and a year of grueling treatments, which she endured largely alone, she gradually finds her moorings, emerging from this dark spell with a profound and grateful understanding of what it means to take responsibility for yourself. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

One woman's melancholic search for herself amid the woods of Vermont. Darling (Necessary Sins, 2007) takes readers on a slow journey of self-discovery, chronicling how she learned the ins and outs of living in rural Vermont. Once her daughter had started college, the apartment they shared in New York City after Darling's husband had died seemed too full of past memories. The author was ready to try her hand at a new adventure: "I would move to Vermont, to the little house I bought. I would buy a dog and live in the country. I would reinvent myself, a woman alone, solitary and self-contained." With that spirit, Darling packed up some belongings and moved to a small, owner-built, somewhat funky house tucked into the woods. Alone and dependent on her own resourcefulness, the author had to learn to navigate the tricky solar-power system and cranky generator, the mice in the ceiling and the collapsing roof on the woodshed. But she was stuck in limbo, unable to unpack, unable to write, unable to face the task of doing, so she ventured outdoors instead. The forest around her was an alien and unreadable landscape, as foreign as the woman she was trying to discover in herself. She stuck to the known paths while the narrow deer trails beckoned to her, egging her on to venture past the safe and narrow roadways. A routine doctor's visit and the unexpected diagnosis of cancer quickly catapulted Darling into foreign territory. From that point, she slowly and methodically discovered her route back to health and self-awareness. Haunting and lyrical, Darling's journey through unknown forests, both physical and emotional, resonates with longings, hopes, fears and a stalwart courage to conquer them all. Evocative ruminations on getting older and discovering the links between nature and self.]]]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

The carefully constructed home Darling had created in her Manhattan apartment began to fall apart when her husband died. When their only child left for college, and the nest emptied completely, Darling knew she had to reinvent or rediscover herself lest she succumb to the cumulative grief of both events. She abandoned the verve and bustle of New York for the pervasive solitude of Vermont, buying a remote backwoods cabin that could only generously be called rustic. Darling discovers that what she doesn't know about rural life is nearly eclipsed by what she doesn't know about herself, yet her determination to learn not only how to live but how to survive is a project she embraces with a journalist's passion for truth and fact-finding. Along with unrelenting loneliness and unyielding Yankee stoicism, Darling also confronts her own mortality when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Darling has written a fierce and forthright chronicle of one formidable woman's courageous journey of healing and revelation, gratitude and resilience.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

Darling can't find her way on a highway, byway or country lane. When her only child heads off to college, her fear of getting lost dovetails with her fear of losing herself altogether. And so, to address both conditions, she moves to off-the-main-road Vermont. There begins her fascinating inquiry into how human beings navigate, complete with tales of Inuits who found their way home by listening to bird songs and crash courses in map-reading with a wilderness guide. Despite her studies, each time she marches into the woods, she ends up bewildered, often on her own property. Various townsfolk call her brave. She wonders why. "You're a woman living alone in the middle of nowhere," a neighbor replies. "Brave is polite for crazy." Darling is a dazzling writer, able to capture the image of "an apple blushing on the scraggly tree" or the lingering grief of her husband's death with a beautiful, sometimes tender, immediacy. At times, though, her struggles in the wild feel manufactured; she can always return to New York if she chooses, where she's held on to her apartment. The heft of this story is in her intelligent questioning of her past and future, including her navigation of the brutal, unexpected terrain of cancer. "The carapace that had been my fantasy of life in Vermont would burn off slowly," she admits, "and I would cling to it as long as I could, because even as I watched it begin to evanesce, I could not imagine what would take its place." LEIGH NEWMAN is the author of "Still Points North," a memoir of Alaska.

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

New York Review of Books Review

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