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In Place
Far Flung: Improvisations on National Parks, Driving to Russia, Not Marrying a Ranger, the Language of Heartbreak, and Other Natural Disasters
Cassandra Kircher was in her twenties when she was hired by the National Park Service, landing a life that allowed her to reinvent herself. For four years she collected entrance fees and worked in the dispatch office before being assigned as the first woman to patrol an isolated backcountry district of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. There, Kircher encountered wonder and beauty, accidents and death. Although she always suspected the mountains might captivate her, she didn’t realize that her adopted landscape would give her strength to confront where she was from—both the Midwest that Willa Cather fans will recognize, and a childhood filled with problems and secrets. Divided and defined by geographic and psychological space, Far Flung begins in the Rockies but broadens its focus as Kircher negotiates places as distant as Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, Russia’s Siberian valleys, and Wisconsin’s lake country, always with Colorado as a heartfelt pivot. These thirteen essays depict a woman coming to terms with her adoration for the wilds of the West and will resonate with all of us longing to better understand ourselves and our relationships to the places and people we love most.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
168 pages, Paperback
Published March 27, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 27, 2019
Text of this review (next paragraph) copied from my Instagram account and written while sitting on a cozy veranda with the breeze blowing, the sun shining, birds and bees zipping around. I highly recommend reading this one outdoors.
An exceptional series of essays set in a variety of locations. How nature had an impact on the author's life and her acceptance and understanding of herself and her family (particularly her difficult, emotional father). Deeply meaningful, muscular but subtle. Just fabulous, mesmerizing writing. I hated for it to end. Settings include Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Alaska, and Oxford, England. Read this if you love travel writing, essays, or memoirs. I don't feel like I'm doing it justice. One of my favorite reads of 2019, so far.
An exceptional series of essays set in a variety of locations. How nature had an impact on the author's life and her acceptance and understanding of herself and her family (particularly her difficult, emotional father). Deeply meaningful, muscular but subtle. Just fabulous, mesmerizing writing. I hated for it to end. Settings include Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Alaska, and Oxford, England. Read this if you love travel writing, essays, or memoirs. I don't feel like I'm doing it justice. One of my favorite reads of 2019, so far.
April 20, 2019
Far Flung: Improvisations on National Parks, Driving to Russia, Not Marrying a Ranger, the Language of Heartbreak, and Other Natural Disasters is possibly the longest title I have seen since college. There was this one book I read about geography and the history of Spain that had an impossibly long title, but I forget it. Its first chapter began with “Determinismo, determinismo, todo es determinismo.” I laughed out loud at the author copying King Solomon. Incidentally, this was long before Jared Diamond. Anyway, long titles amuse me and draw me in for some reason.
Far Flung is a collection of ten autobiographical essays by Cassandra Kircher that reflect back on her life working as a ranger, as an educator, as a daughter, and as an adult woman with a husband and children. She writes with the expectation that her readers will understand subtext as well as text. She trusts us to get it without having it explained. From her first essay, about three camping trips with her father, She never tells us her father is a more than difficult man. She doesn’t say he’s selfish and careless of others, but we sure realize it. I will confess to finding the lack of compassion for the animals he displayed appalling. He strikes a deer and unlike anyone I have ever heard of, just drives off without bothering to track it down and kill it, to end its pain. He also puts fish in a pail where they slowly suffocate. There is no need for Kircher to characterize him beyond reporting his actions.
In her final essay on meeting an Iditarod champion, she is equally trusting we will get it. Yes, she tells us what he did. We know she is offended, but she lets us infer on our own what the real offense was. Subtext and context are at play and she expects us to get it.
Nothing makes me happier than an author who trusts her readers. Kircher never takes our hands to guide us through the ideas behind her stories. She encourages us to trust our own judgment. She is a bit macabre in her fascination for deaths in the backcountry and mountaineering. I wish she had not included a picture of one climber’s frozen body, even if only looks like a guy in a snowsuit whose fallen over. I didn’t mind the macabre so much. I love mountaineering and polar exploration book, but the photo felt out of place. Perhaps the final published book will have many more pictures so it won’t seem so obtrusive.
With that quibble, I have to confess enjoying this book immensely. It was fresh and new and she had that most important ingredient, trust in her readers.
I received an ARC of Far Flung West Virginia University Press through Shelf Awareness.
Far Flung at West Virginia University Press
Cassandra Kircher
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
Far Flung is a collection of ten autobiographical essays by Cassandra Kircher that reflect back on her life working as a ranger, as an educator, as a daughter, and as an adult woman with a husband and children. She writes with the expectation that her readers will understand subtext as well as text. She trusts us to get it without having it explained. From her first essay, about three camping trips with her father, She never tells us her father is a more than difficult man. She doesn’t say he’s selfish and careless of others, but we sure realize it. I will confess to finding the lack of compassion for the animals he displayed appalling. He strikes a deer and unlike anyone I have ever heard of, just drives off without bothering to track it down and kill it, to end its pain. He also puts fish in a pail where they slowly suffocate. There is no need for Kircher to characterize him beyond reporting his actions.
In her final essay on meeting an Iditarod champion, she is equally trusting we will get it. Yes, she tells us what he did. We know she is offended, but she lets us infer on our own what the real offense was. Subtext and context are at play and she expects us to get it.
Nothing makes me happier than an author who trusts her readers. Kircher never takes our hands to guide us through the ideas behind her stories. She encourages us to trust our own judgment. She is a bit macabre in her fascination for deaths in the backcountry and mountaineering. I wish she had not included a picture of one climber’s frozen body, even if only looks like a guy in a snowsuit whose fallen over. I didn’t mind the macabre so much. I love mountaineering and polar exploration book, but the photo felt out of place. Perhaps the final published book will have many more pictures so it won’t seem so obtrusive.
With that quibble, I have to confess enjoying this book immensely. It was fresh and new and she had that most important ingredient, trust in her readers.
I received an ARC of Far Flung West Virginia University Press through Shelf Awareness.
Far Flung at West Virginia University Press
Cassandra Kircher
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
August 21, 2019
Loved this book and found myself slowing down and re-reading paragraphs as I approached the end as I didn't want to finish. Beautifully written. About the author's experiences growing up camping with her family, which helped her grow to love nature and the outdoors life, and then becoming a ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park in her 20s. The stories of her experiences with hiking, camping, solitude, her relationship with her complicated father, an adopted daughter, and the rescues and recoveries while working as a ranger were compelling, thoughtful and created a wonderful sense of having been there with her.
December 14, 2019
3.5 stars
Far Flung is a collection of personal essays and reflections that struck me. Cassandra Kircher is a former park ranger who writes about her life as a ranger, a daughter of a sullen and difficult man, a nature lover, and a wife of a man who doesn't share her love of camping.
Being a park ranger seems far more interesting and romantic than being a cubicle captive, but Kircher's essays expose the reality - the solitude can be wonderful and it can be lonely; nature can be lovely and it can be deadly.
The essay Oxford through the Looking Glass was odd. It felt too selfish compared to the other essays.
For me Far Flung was a slow and meditative read. I did not want to rush; I wanted to linger and allow Kircher's words to bring everything to life.
Far Flung is a collection of personal essays and reflections that struck me. Cassandra Kircher is a former park ranger who writes about her life as a ranger, a daughter of a sullen and difficult man, a nature lover, and a wife of a man who doesn't share her love of camping.
Being a park ranger seems far more interesting and romantic than being a cubicle captive, but Kircher's essays expose the reality - the solitude can be wonderful and it can be lonely; nature can be lovely and it can be deadly.
The essay Oxford through the Looking Glass was odd. It felt too selfish compared to the other essays.
For me Far Flung was a slow and meditative read. I did not want to rush; I wanted to linger and allow Kircher's words to bring everything to life.
October 7, 2019
Far Flung: Improvisations on National Parks, Driving to Russia, Not Marrying a Ranger, the Language of Heartbreak, and Other Natural Disasters is a beautiful meditation on the way place can shape us and connect us to ourselves and the people we love. The details and precision Kircher uses to describe the environments she is in show her deep attention to the world, and I loved learning about places, Colorado in particular, that I wasn’t too familiar with. I felt like I got to live in the backcountry for a few hours, and came out more grounded and wiser for it. Kircher also does a remarkable job of connecting her family relationships to the spaces she moves through, and I appreciated her sensitivity and insights in these sections. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has been captivated by a landscape or who is looking for an excuse to think more deeply about how the places we are drawn to can teach us about who we are.
November 14, 2019
Cassie is my friend and wonderful shero for her early work as a national park ranger in several western states. I also know her writing group, admired colleagues at Elon University, and I enjoyed imagining their scrutiny and contributions to these stories. This is a small book - described as "adorable" - which traveled well with me for hiking in the NW and served well as bedtime stories of places and relationships near and far.
October 1, 2022
3.5 stars
These were carefully chosen and effectively revealed windows into Kircher's experience. I appreciated that, the high level of craft and care and visceral truth in these essays. But there was a lot more tension, especially father daughter tension, and less outdoorsness, than I'd been hoping for. Not the author's fault, just not the best fit for me.
These were carefully chosen and effectively revealed windows into Kircher's experience. I appreciated that, the high level of craft and care and visceral truth in these essays. But there was a lot more tension, especially father daughter tension, and less outdoorsness, than I'd been hoping for. Not the author's fault, just not the best fit for me.
October 9, 2019
Far Flung is a collection of essays that explores one woman's relationship with nature, family dynamics, and the passage of time, among other human experiences. The overall effect is wondrous, illuminating and rueful. Congratulations to WVUP for publishing this gem.
August 24, 2025
2.5 stars rounded up. Tiny little book that took me forever to finish because I picked it up and put it down repeatedly because it was consistently, disappointingly less than I hoped for, for a book by and about a female park ranger.
September 10, 2019
Wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed this from cover to cover. Nothing beats good writing!
May 8, 2019
(Free Review Copy) I picked up Far Flung as a what I thought would be a great companion book to The World for Wilderness is Woman. Far Flung is an essay collection by Cassandra Kircher, the first woman stationed in the Rocky Mountain National Park’s remote North Fork subdistrict.
As with any essay collection I liked some more than others (loved Someone Else Dies and No More to the Lake) but I found that in the end I thought I would be getting more concret stories from Kircher’s time with the National Park Service but these essays were really more about Kircher’s life as a whole, with how nature and her love of the outdoors shapes and affected the rest of her life. Kircher voiced some of my own feelings about childhood memories at my families lake house and how no matter how far into the wilderness you go there will always be trash (you would be surprised with how much trash you come across in remote areas). While these essays are short, I found them incredible impactful and I’m so happy Kircher shared this memories and thoughts with us.
As with any essay collection I liked some more than others (loved Someone Else Dies and No More to the Lake) but I found that in the end I thought I would be getting more concret stories from Kircher’s time with the National Park Service but these essays were really more about Kircher’s life as a whole, with how nature and her love of the outdoors shapes and affected the rest of her life. Kircher voiced some of my own feelings about childhood memories at my families lake house and how no matter how far into the wilderness you go there will always be trash (you would be surprised with how much trash you come across in remote areas). While these essays are short, I found them incredible impactful and I’m so happy Kircher shared this memories and thoughts with us.
July 9, 2021
Cassandra Kircher has gifted us with a gem. Deceptively small in size, it is deep in natural color with glints of joyous light shimmering in darker tones of mystery forged in the subterranean pressures without which base materials could never become lustrous jewels. Gazing into this shaded pool, you will be transported through time and space back to generations past and forward to children coming age, from the mountains and lakes of national parks to the wilds of Alaska and on to England, all the while witnessing the human drama of a single life unfolding in the world and, perhaps just as importantly, unto itself. You will be reminded of the frustrating unknowability of our parents, the difficulties of understanding our own deepest motivations, the raw ache of early heartbreak and the dear value of a partner who helps us see ourselves more clearly. Reading these stories, I was reminded more than once just what a treasure, a pearl of great price, it is simply to be alive. Who after all could ask more of an author? As Kircher herself says in these pages, "The whole world has never tasted so good."
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews