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Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.
314 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
355 people are currently reading
10453 people want to read
About the author
Terry Tempest Williams
101 books1,445 followersTerry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah in which she was raised. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature.
She has testified before Congress on women’s health, committed acts of civil disobedience in the years 1987 - 1992 in protest against nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, and again, in March, 2003 in Washington, D.C., with Code Pink, against the Iraq War. She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda.
Williams is the author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World was published in 2008 by Pantheon Books.
In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award given by The Center for the American West. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfictionand a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction. Williams was featured in Ken Burns' PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). In 2011, she received the 18th International Peace Award given by the Community of Christ Church.
Williams is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah and a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. She has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College where she continues to teach. She divides her time between Wilson, Wyoming and Castle Valley, Utah, where her husband Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
She has testified before Congress on women’s health, committed acts of civil disobedience in the years 1987 - 1992 in protest against nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, and again, in March, 2003 in Washington, D.C., with Code Pink, against the Iraq War. She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda.
Williams is the author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World was published in 2008 by Pantheon Books.
In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award given by The Center for the American West. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfictionand a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction. Williams was featured in Ken Burns' PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). In 2011, she received the 18th International Peace Award given by the Community of Christ Church.
Williams is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah and a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. She has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College where she continues to teach. She divides her time between Wilson, Wyoming and Castle Valley, Utah, where her husband Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 975 reviews
January 31, 2018
I read this book after a quick bout of reading envy. Another reading friend posted about it on her Instagram stories and it reminded me that the essay I read in the Writing Non-Fiction class I took, "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" comes from this book. In that essay, Terry examines the facts of radiation fallout in the Nevada/Utah desert and the high occurrence of cancer in the women of her family. One of my closest friends just had a bilateral mastectomy last Friday, and I've had that essay on my mind. So when it came up again in social media, I knew I had to have it.
Last year, I read When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice, which is almost exclusively focused on Terry's mother, and the blank journals she left behind when she died from cancer. This much earlier book is also largely about her mother, during her last bout with cancer, but this also coincides with the Great Salt Lake's flooding periods, and the destruction of some of the bird habitats surrounding it. Terry is attuned to these issues because of her work. Each essay has the name of a species of bird found around the lake, the water level, and then may or may not have much to do with the bird.
So the essays are about birds and climate change. And about cancer and family. And about the decisions the author makes that aren't exactly what is expected by her family or religion, and how she navigates them. But in being about all of those things, it is about so much more than that, and I just kept coming back to it. And for a book published in 1991, it sure seemed relevant.
And of course, books on grief have been following me around, or I pursue them. Her mother dies of cancer, but it almost walks the line of a holy, sacred experience. Or maybe that is how she needed to write about it. It's a little unreal, based on my own experience, but nice that her mother was at peace with dying (having battled cancer already once before) and all the things needing to be said were said. (Except we know that this isn't quite true, based on the more recent book, where Terry is desperate for more of her mother, and all she has are the empty notebooks. But sometimes we must grieve in stages.)
And sometimes the experiences with the birds and their changing habitat help her process the grief:
This is a book I need to own.
Last year, I read When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice, which is almost exclusively focused on Terry's mother, and the blank journals she left behind when she died from cancer. This much earlier book is also largely about her mother, during her last bout with cancer, but this also coincides with the Great Salt Lake's flooding periods, and the destruction of some of the bird habitats surrounding it. Terry is attuned to these issues because of her work. Each essay has the name of a species of bird found around the lake, the water level, and then may or may not have much to do with the bird.
So the essays are about birds and climate change. And about cancer and family. And about the decisions the author makes that aren't exactly what is expected by her family or religion, and how she navigates them. But in being about all of those things, it is about so much more than that, and I just kept coming back to it. And for a book published in 1991, it sure seemed relevant.
"We spoke of rage. Of women and landscape. How our bodies and the body of the earth have been mined."Actually when I read the very first essay where the rage quotation i is found, I immediately emailed my colleague at U-Mass Amherst, who is interested in the intersection of climate change and mindfulness, and told her she should read this book.
And of course, books on grief have been following me around, or I pursue them. Her mother dies of cancer, but it almost walks the line of a holy, sacred experience. Or maybe that is how she needed to write about it. It's a little unreal, based on my own experience, but nice that her mother was at peace with dying (having battled cancer already once before) and all the things needing to be said were said. (Except we know that this isn't quite true, based on the more recent book, where Terry is desperate for more of her mother, and all she has are the empty notebooks. But sometimes we must grieve in stages.)
And sometimes the experiences with the birds and their changing habitat help her process the grief:
"When I see ring-billed gulls picking on the flesh of decaying carp, I am less afraid of death... My fears surface in my isolation. My serenity surfaces in my solitude."It is fascinating how Terry finds parallels between nature's loss and her own. In "Redheads," she talks about California losing 95% of its wetlands over the last 100 years (1891-1991) and how 85% of Utah's wetlands had been lost in the last two (1989-1991), and how when wetlands go, species go, and so on. Then over in the "Meadowlarks" essay, she says,
"A person with cancer dies in increments, and a part of you slowly dies with them."Definitely a link there.
This is a book I need to own.
May 17, 2007
Williams is an especially confounding writer, and part of it has to do with her voice—it’s very assured, but in that certainty lie the seeds of alienation and annoyance. It’s the assurance born of privilege, of money, and of an intact family. She can speak of democracy all she wants (and she does, especially in later works), but she’s at the higher end of the social spectrum—democracy (or any system) tends to work out for those people. Additionally, she tries too hard to wring some elemental truth from her prose, which, in many instances, results in a feeling of artifice. Interwoven with this tendency is perhaps the most irritating facet of her work—what can only be described as degeneration into “crystal gazing prose,” or abstract, highly pretentious, spiritual drivel. Much of her dialog rings untrue—as do several moments in the narrative (e.g. when she sticks a middle finger in the face of the hicks). On a mechanics note, her incessant use of passive verb construction acts as a sea anchor on the text. On the other hand, and this is why she is so confounding, there are moments of sublimity, truth, and flat out dynamite writing that almost make the journey worthwhile. She manipulates thematic elements throughout, balancing the concepts of “isolation” and “solitude” in a dialectical dance. “Solitude” seems the goal, synonymous with “refuge,” an acceptance of life’s rhythms (including death). And her use of the lake level is quietly effective: the story begins and ends at the same level—a subtle way of achieving a sort of closure.
August 16, 2019
Perhaps it was the clarity and honesty in Williams’ writing that was so extraordinary and won me over.
Before reading I didn’t care one iota about the focal points in this book. That is the Great Salt Lake or Mormonism or the overarching theme of a mother fighting in the latter stages with metastasized breast cancer. I lost my own mother to cancer and I didn’t want to relive that experience. I decided to read it because I like books on the environment and it had many positive reviews.
So my initial reservations were all wrong. I loved this book and I became especially interested in the ecology of the Great Salt Lake.
5 stars. This book is now considered a conservation classic. A very moving book and there were several moments where I got choked up while reading. Highly recommended.
Before reading I didn’t care one iota about the focal points in this book. That is the Great Salt Lake or Mormonism or the overarching theme of a mother fighting in the latter stages with metastasized breast cancer. I lost my own mother to cancer and I didn’t want to relive that experience. I decided to read it because I like books on the environment and it had many positive reviews.
So my initial reservations were all wrong. I loved this book and I became especially interested in the ecology of the Great Salt Lake.
5 stars. This book is now considered a conservation classic. A very moving book and there were several moments where I got choked up while reading. Highly recommended.
January 12, 2010
Reading this book is like... watching the wetland landscape of your childhood home transform and disappear, and watching your mother and beloved grandmother succumb to cancer and die. Just like.
This book was -- stunning. Like a cattle prod between the eyes. And painful. Like crying sand instead of tears.
And so familiar (yes I lived in Utah, yes with all my ancestors' pioneer histories, yes with the pervasive blessing and burden of Mormonism, yes with the inspiring and healing landscapes of mountain and desert, yes my mother died young of breast cancer) it was too painful to even cry through it.
Williams' poetic style reminds me of the old time naturalists-- she is a keen observing soul out there in nature-- deeply woven into the natural world, intimate with the birds.
Refuge is unique-- it came out of nowhere and knocked the wind out of me. More of a talisman than a book.
This book was -- stunning. Like a cattle prod between the eyes. And painful. Like crying sand instead of tears.
And so familiar (yes I lived in Utah, yes with all my ancestors' pioneer histories, yes with the pervasive blessing and burden of Mormonism, yes with the inspiring and healing landscapes of mountain and desert, yes my mother died young of breast cancer) it was too painful to even cry through it.
Williams' poetic style reminds me of the old time naturalists-- she is a keen observing soul out there in nature-- deeply woven into the natural world, intimate with the birds.
Refuge is unique-- it came out of nowhere and knocked the wind out of me. More of a talisman than a book.
April 29, 2011
There is something very different going on in Terry Tempest William's head than my own. Her mother is dying of cancer and she is a scientist who studies birds near Great Salt Lake.
"The pulse of Great Salt Lake, surging along Antelope Island's shores, becomes the force wearing against my mother's body. And when I watch flocks of phalaropes wing their way toward quiet bays on the island, I recall watching Mother sleep, imagining the dreams that were encircling her, wondering what she knows that I must learn for myself. The light changes, Antelope Island is blue. Mother awakened and I looked away."
I would never, ever write something like that. Ever.
The entire book is like this, all 314 pages, and it gave me a headache. But hey, maybe this is your kind of thing.
"The pulse of Great Salt Lake, surging along Antelope Island's shores, becomes the force wearing against my mother's body. And when I watch flocks of phalaropes wing their way toward quiet bays on the island, I recall watching Mother sleep, imagining the dreams that were encircling her, wondering what she knows that I must learn for myself. The light changes, Antelope Island is blue. Mother awakened and I looked away."
I would never, ever write something like that. Ever.
The entire book is like this, all 314 pages, and it gave me a headache. But hey, maybe this is your kind of thing.
December 17, 2013
I hold tight hoping Terry Tempest Williams will devote an entire book to her grandmother. "Refuge" was a beautiful book of love, loss of loved ones, loss of self – and doing what you can to get it all back.
I love the opening of each chapter with the tracking of the elevation of Great Salt Lake during the flood of the 1980s -- how the lake began to embody everything for the author and to all of the people of Salt Lake City. This is a personal story about being part of a bad and a good world community, living in a world ultimately controlled by natural forces, and human realization or denial of these forces. It is also a very personal story of the author's love of nature especially the lake and the birds of Utah, her Mormon religion, and, her grandmother's world religion. I'll be reading more by Terry Tempest Williams.
I love the opening of each chapter with the tracking of the elevation of Great Salt Lake during the flood of the 1980s -- how the lake began to embody everything for the author and to all of the people of Salt Lake City. This is a personal story about being part of a bad and a good world community, living in a world ultimately controlled by natural forces, and human realization or denial of these forces. It is also a very personal story of the author's love of nature especially the lake and the birds of Utah, her Mormon religion, and, her grandmother's world religion. I'll be reading more by Terry Tempest Williams.
January 6, 2019
Terry Tempest Williams is a writer with a deep and active interest in environmental education and conservation, Refuge is both a memoir of a period in her life when she accompanied her mother through the illness that would claim her life, and shortly after her grandmother, leaving her the matriarch of the family at the age of thirty-four.
Although this is the book she is most well-known for, I first read and reviewed her writing and encountered her mother in a more recent, and equally extraordinary book, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice which was written twenty years later (when the author was 54) in 2012. It was also the age her mother was, when she succumbed to the illness written about in Refuge. I recommend it equally, they are a unique pair, in their insights, their confusion, their ultimate compassion and understanding.
Throughout the memoir, she spends time with her mother, and equally has concerns for the Great Salt Lake, which sits on their doorstep, it is the place she grew up in, a landscape and wildlife she is obsessed with, one I knew nothing about, but became increasingly intrigued by, this enormous, terminal lake with no outlet to the sea.
Natives of the area speak of the lake in the shorthand of lake levels, it's not deep, but it is vast, so it doesn't take much precipitation for significant rises to occur. In the mid 80's when she was writing this book (it was first published in 1991) talk on the streets of Salt Lake City was of the lake's rapid rising, everyone had concerns, the airport, the farms, the railroad, survival.
She writes about her family history, her genealogy with its deep roots in the American West her Mormon culture has preserved and their connection to the natural world, infused with spiritual values.
As the author shares the drama unfolding within her family of which she is the eldest child and only daughter, there is always the metaphor of the lake, the simultaneous restlessness of its birds, as if they too sense change coming; she wonders if they are better adapted to it than humans.
The thirty-six short chapters each carry the name of one of the bird species that inhabits the lake environment, they may only be mentioned in one sentence, but they are all listed, noted, observed over time, throughout the pages, they represent the life cycle of species, moving on, migrating, adapting to change, dying, making way for the young.
William's both observes beauty and dissects suffering as she observes her mother's and her own and tries to make sense of it, through nature and her current philosophical understanding.
Birds are entwined with local folklore, the Californian gull rescuing the Mormons in 1848 from losing their crops to crickets. They still gather to tell this story.
It's a book where you could highlight a passage on each page, one you can open on a random page and find some meaningful, reflective passage on life, an interesting bird fact or a brief history lesson.
The writing is at times poetic, sometimes scientific, passionate and honest. There's a perfect balance between the personal and the environment that makes it a compelling read, but also one that you'll want to savour.
The mother and daughter get their astrology charts done and read each other's.
As the Great Salt Lake continues to rise, a deep sadness washes over her that all has been lost.
There is also refuge in poetry, in other writers and the book is interspersed with memorable quotes from those whose words soothe her during this period of grief, as her mother goes into decline.
Although this is the book she is most well-known for, I first read and reviewed her writing and encountered her mother in a more recent, and equally extraordinary book, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice which was written twenty years later (when the author was 54) in 2012. It was also the age her mother was, when she succumbed to the illness written about in Refuge. I recommend it equally, they are a unique pair, in their insights, their confusion, their ultimate compassion and understanding.
Throughout the memoir, she spends time with her mother, and equally has concerns for the Great Salt Lake, which sits on their doorstep, it is the place she grew up in, a landscape and wildlife she is obsessed with, one I knew nothing about, but became increasingly intrigued by, this enormous, terminal lake with no outlet to the sea.
Great Salt Lake: wilderness adjacent to a city; a shifting shoreline that plays havoc with highways; islands too stark, too remote to inhabit; water in the desert that no one can drink. It is the liquid lie of the West.
Natives of the area speak of the lake in the shorthand of lake levels, it's not deep, but it is vast, so it doesn't take much precipitation for significant rises to occur. In the mid 80's when she was writing this book (it was first published in 1991) talk on the streets of Salt Lake City was of the lake's rapid rising, everyone had concerns, the airport, the farms, the railroad, survival.
My interest lay at 4206', the level which, according to my topographical map, meant the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
She writes about her family history, her genealogy with its deep roots in the American West her Mormon culture has preserved and their connection to the natural world, infused with spiritual values.
The birds and I share a natural history. It is a matter of rootedness, of living inside a place for so long that the mind and imagination fuse.
As the author shares the drama unfolding within her family of which she is the eldest child and only daughter, there is always the metaphor of the lake, the simultaneous restlessness of its birds, as if they too sense change coming; she wonders if they are better adapted to it than humans.
The thirty-six short chapters each carry the name of one of the bird species that inhabits the lake environment, they may only be mentioned in one sentence, but they are all listed, noted, observed over time, throughout the pages, they represent the life cycle of species, moving on, migrating, adapting to change, dying, making way for the young.
William's both observes beauty and dissects suffering as she observes her mother's and her own and tries to make sense of it, through nature and her current philosophical understanding.
Tonight I watched the sun sink behind the lake; The clouds looked like rainbow trout swimming in a lapis sky. I can honour its beauty or resent the smog in this valley which makes it possible. Either way, I am deceiving myself.
Birds are entwined with local folklore, the Californian gull rescuing the Mormons in 1848 from losing their crops to crickets. They still gather to tell this story.
How the white angels ate as many crickets as their bellies would hold, flew to the shore of Great Salt Lake and regurgitated them, then returned to the field for more. We honour them as Utah's state bird.
It's a book where you could highlight a passage on each page, one you can open on a random page and find some meaningful, reflective passage on life, an interesting bird fact or a brief history lesson.
The writing is at times poetic, sometimes scientific, passionate and honest. There's a perfect balance between the personal and the environment that makes it a compelling read, but also one that you'll want to savour.
The mother and daughter get their astrology charts done and read each other's.
"I liked the part about Terry being neat and meticulous," teased Mother. "I remember standing in the middle of your bedroom when you were about thirteen years old. Everything in your closet was on the floor, art and school papers were piled high on your desk. I remember thinking, I have two choices here - I can harp on her every day of her life, making certain her room is straight - or I can close the door and preserve our relationship."
As the Great Salt Lake continues to rise, a deep sadness washes over her that all has been lost.
I am not adjusting. I keep dreaming the Refuge back to what I have known: rich, green bulrushes that border the wetlands, herons hiding behind cattails, concentric circles of ducks on ponds. I blow on these images like the last burning embers on a winter's night.
There is no one to blame, nothing to fight...Only a simple natural phenomenon: the rise of the great Salt Lake.
There is also refuge in poetry, in other writers and the book is interspersed with memorable quotes from those whose words soothe her during this period of grief, as her mother goes into decline.
September 25, 2010
Yes, this is one of those books that I will list as "amazing" for me. I had a difficult time getting started into this one but I pushed through for several reasons. It was recommended to me by my grad school professor. So, of course, I wanted to read to understand more closely the mind of this mentor and I like the idea of the subtitle "An Unnatural history of Family and Place." I had not heard of Williams previously. Initially it had too much naturalist talk for me and then its other subject matter is the author's mother's struggle with cancer. So sad. I put it down at one point because it made losing my own brother to cancer so fresh. And my own fear of getting cancer emphasized.
But this is a bittersweet and sacred story of one family's journey through losing those they(a mother, two grandmothers, and aunts to cancer) love. Williams speaks for herself, her deep personal intimate feelings (which were some of the most moving parts of the book) and speaks for the others remaining. She is known for the essay at the end of the book that serves as the epilogue. It is entitled "The Clan of One Breasted Women." The irony of this book is that these people all live in the western part of the country - Utah - where there was much nuclear testing during the 1950s and beyond. Williams, a Mormon with clear lineage to the beginnings of the movement, presents the evidence that these research projects are the cause of the cancers in her family. She also chronicles her concerns over the lack of environmental respect that is given to the Great Salt Lake and the surrounding region. Part of her refuge is spending time in the bird refuge that edges part of the Great Salt lake.
While at first, I wasn't sure I would like this, I gave it a chance. And I'm so thrilled with the outcome. How can one be thrilled with such a bittersweet book with death as an outcome? Williams says that "Grief dares us to love once more." That parallels a recent song I've heard by artist Amy Grant - "Love has made me unafraid." It's no mistake that two different people in the midst of the human experience have discovered this deep truth for themselves in entirely separate ways. I'm glad they brought to my attention something I knew but had not yet articulated.
But this is a bittersweet and sacred story of one family's journey through losing those they(a mother, two grandmothers, and aunts to cancer) love. Williams speaks for herself, her deep personal intimate feelings (which were some of the most moving parts of the book) and speaks for the others remaining. She is known for the essay at the end of the book that serves as the epilogue. It is entitled "The Clan of One Breasted Women." The irony of this book is that these people all live in the western part of the country - Utah - where there was much nuclear testing during the 1950s and beyond. Williams, a Mormon with clear lineage to the beginnings of the movement, presents the evidence that these research projects are the cause of the cancers in her family. She also chronicles her concerns over the lack of environmental respect that is given to the Great Salt Lake and the surrounding region. Part of her refuge is spending time in the bird refuge that edges part of the Great Salt lake.
While at first, I wasn't sure I would like this, I gave it a chance. And I'm so thrilled with the outcome. How can one be thrilled with such a bittersweet book with death as an outcome? Williams says that "Grief dares us to love once more." That parallels a recent song I've heard by artist Amy Grant - "Love has made me unafraid." It's no mistake that two different people in the midst of the human experience have discovered this deep truth for themselves in entirely separate ways. I'm glad they brought to my attention something I knew but had not yet articulated.
September 4, 2013
I have lived in Salt Lake City for almost a year. Its a place where family, faith and nature are interwoven into everyday life. Nature and family are important to me, organized religion not so much. I am not a Mormon. However, there is something about living on the edge of the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountain Range that makes you want to reflect on your life and what it means to be close to nature on a spiritual level. Terry Tempest Williams's book, Refuge, is the perfect book for women who want to turn their thoughts inward, especially when it comes to our relationships with our mothers and daughters. It is a book about women, about birds, and how strong and resilient they both are. The most poignant part of the book for me is how Williams and her family dealt with her mother's cancer, her dying and the grief that comes after. My mother died from breast cancer over 20 years ago and I still feel that loss. Its a beautiful book, one to keep and reread as life changes and there is need for a "refuge".
September 12, 2007
this is no conventional book by a conventional author- it is written by a fierce nature lover and serious nature writer. though nature writing is not my favorite genre, tempest williams reached me in a way no author ever has. i've turned to this book like i would turn to a best friend over the past few years- it's always as good as i remember it.
September 17, 2019
‘It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm. We go about our business with the usual alacrity, while in the pit of our stomach there is a sense of something tenuous.
These moments of peripheral perceptions are short, sharp flashes of insight we tend to discount like seeing the movement of an animal from the corner of our eye. We turn and there is nothing there. They are the strong and subtle impressions we allow to slip away.’
...’I know the solitude my mother speaks of. It is what sustains me and protects me from my mind. It renders me fully present. I am desert. I am mountains. I am Great Salt Lake. There are other languages being spoken by wind, water, and wings. There are other lives to consider: avocets, stilts, and stones. Peace is the perspective found in patterns. When I see ring-billed gulls picking on the flesh of decaying carp, I am less afraid of death. We are no more and no less than the life that surrounds us. My fears surface in my isolation. My serenity surfaces in my solitude.’
These moments of peripheral perceptions are short, sharp flashes of insight we tend to discount like seeing the movement of an animal from the corner of our eye. We turn and there is nothing there. They are the strong and subtle impressions we allow to slip away.’
...’I know the solitude my mother speaks of. It is what sustains me and protects me from my mind. It renders me fully present. I am desert. I am mountains. I am Great Salt Lake. There are other languages being spoken by wind, water, and wings. There are other lives to consider: avocets, stilts, and stones. Peace is the perspective found in patterns. When I see ring-billed gulls picking on the flesh of decaying carp, I am less afraid of death. We are no more and no less than the life that surrounds us. My fears surface in my isolation. My serenity surfaces in my solitude.’
April 1, 2013
Oh, a difficult book. Heart-rending and heart-lifting.
Refuge weaves together two tragedies: a catastrophic flood of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Utah and the death of Williams's mother from cancer.
Terry Tempest Williams is one of my hero-writers. The solid science of her naturalism is balanced by her mysticism. She writes desert prose from the desert: it can be harsh and unsparing, but there is so much beauty to be had.
Recommended for grievers and bird-watchers.
Refuge weaves together two tragedies: a catastrophic flood of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Utah and the death of Williams's mother from cancer.
Terry Tempest Williams is one of my hero-writers. The solid science of her naturalism is balanced by her mysticism. She writes desert prose from the desert: it can be harsh and unsparing, but there is so much beauty to be had.
Recommended for grievers and bird-watchers.
August 24, 2017
"Everything about Great Salt Lake is, exaggerated--the heat, the cold, the salt, and the brine. It is a landscape so surreal one can never know what it is for certain."
"When most people had given up on the Refuge, saying the birds were gone, I was drawn further into it's essence. In the same way that when someone is dying many retreat, I chose to stay."
I finished The Hour of Land, late last summer and fell hard for Terry Tempest Williams and wanted to read everything she has written. Well, nearly a year later, I am finally getting around to Refuge. It grabbed me immediately. This was written nearly 25 years ago, but her prose just sings with strength and passion. This one deals with her dying mother and the threatened survival of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, at the Great Salt Lake. Excellent.
"When most people had given up on the Refuge, saying the birds were gone, I was drawn further into it's essence. In the same way that when someone is dying many retreat, I chose to stay."
I finished The Hour of Land, late last summer and fell hard for Terry Tempest Williams and wanted to read everything she has written. Well, nearly a year later, I am finally getting around to Refuge. It grabbed me immediately. This was written nearly 25 years ago, but her prose just sings with strength and passion. This one deals with her dying mother and the threatened survival of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, at the Great Salt Lake. Excellent.
April 28, 2017
Terry Tempest Williams is a local author with a transcendent story. Part memoir, Utah history, Audubon guide, and observer, Williams tells the story of the rise of the Great Salt Lake in the 1980's and its destruction of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Alongside this historical and ornithological account, Williams relates her own search for refuge as her mother and grandmother die of cancer, Both "down winder" victims of the nuclear testing in Nevada during the 1950s and early 60s. It is a very moving narrative with profound and fluid orchestration linking these narratives. Williams prose is other worldy. A definite must read for local 'birders', and those seeking to find their own refuge amidst loss in this fragile existence.
June 30, 2022
DNF. As a woman, environmentalist, and Utah resident it feels illegal to say I didn't like this, but I'm a little over halfway through and just can't do it anymore. Two stars because there are some cleverly-written bits of wisdom and I liked the unique commentary on such a fascinating moment in the history of the GSL, but overall I can't stand the self-centered way she writes--as if every single thing that has ever entered her head is the most important and sublime revelation to ever hit the planet--and in my opinion the strange, dense, meandering syntax falls more on the side of "unintelligible" than "poetic."
July 18, 2007
This book was listed as "suggested reading" for a nature-writing class that I took in college. The book is about the long, slow death of the author's mother from cancer. In Utah in the 50's, parts of the state were used for nuclear testing. Many people got cancer as a result. It's a sad book, but starkly realistic. Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, and I actually met her when I lived in Utah. She's lovely. This is a realistic American story of a family tragedy, how our environment can hurt us, and what we have to do in response.
October 19, 2018
Lo mejor que he leído hasta ahora, duro y bello.
May 9, 2022
I read this 2x in 2002. Writing this review 5/2022. I started reading her new book Erosion and reflecting back on this book.
Terry Tempst Williams changed the way I looked at things when I first read this and has continued to do so through the years. Yes you might call her an environmentalist - but the way she writes is from a feminine perspective - out of a true love and care. She asks deep questions and is very knowledgeable. Her perspective on living as part of the earth and taking care of her and speaking for her and all beings living on her is not just in her words and lovely writing and creativity, but in how she has models and lives her life. She lives in Utah. Was raised Morman but her faith through life has become her own.. In her latest book Erosion she has started to teach at Harvard Divinity School and as she said “learning to learn a new way to pray”.
This book is an exploration of her grandmother and mom having died from breast cancer caused by pollutants in Utah’s Salt Lake area. She weaves her love for these women, her personal history, faith and deep care, creativity and love of the land where she lives. Her writing is unique and lovely. She speaks truth and wisdom. It’s a different perspective then we often hear.
I admire the way she writes. And admire the work she does on behalf of all who live on Gaia and the wonder of the land itself.
These topics still exists 20 years later. Breast cancer is more pervasive now.
Refuge is one of my favorite books.
Terry Tempst Williams changed the way I looked at things when I first read this and has continued to do so through the years. Yes you might call her an environmentalist - but the way she writes is from a feminine perspective - out of a true love and care. She asks deep questions and is very knowledgeable. Her perspective on living as part of the earth and taking care of her and speaking for her and all beings living on her is not just in her words and lovely writing and creativity, but in how she has models and lives her life. She lives in Utah. Was raised Morman but her faith through life has become her own.. In her latest book Erosion she has started to teach at Harvard Divinity School and as she said “learning to learn a new way to pray”.
This book is an exploration of her grandmother and mom having died from breast cancer caused by pollutants in Utah’s Salt Lake area. She weaves her love for these women, her personal history, faith and deep care, creativity and love of the land where she lives. Her writing is unique and lovely. She speaks truth and wisdom. It’s a different perspective then we often hear.
I admire the way she writes. And admire the work she does on behalf of all who live on Gaia and the wonder of the land itself.
These topics still exists 20 years later. Breast cancer is more pervasive now.
Refuge is one of my favorite books.
April 5, 2020
Refugio ha llenado la casa y mi pecho de imágenes y texturas, plumas, aves al vuelo. Calor del desierto. Sal que cuartea la piel y la boca. Hielo.
En este libro, Terry Tempest Williams nos sumerge en su mundo, atravesado por el Gran Lago Salado (su fauna, sus crecidas, su inclemencia, su sacralidad) y el cáncer que vive su madre. Ella, perteneciente al “clan de las mujeres de un solo pecho”, nos conduce con voz lúcida a través de sus vivencias y pensamientos íntimos.
Entre la biografía y el ensayo ecologista, establece una simbiosis clara (digo ciencia y digo también magia) entre la naturaleza y nosotros mismos (nosotros, que qué somos si no naturaleza). La calma y la tempestad. Sentirse o no salvo. Cuidar el nido, migrar en bandada. O en soledad. La familia, la maternidad y crianza. La naturaleza siendo cobijo pero también grito. Los intentos humanos para parar el lago por intereses económicos. Los huevos vaciados de las aves, nuestros úteros, los animales que atacamos, las pruebas nucleares, los cánceres que van tomándonos. La necesidad de caminar desde la muerte hacia la vida. Las mujeres en eje consigo mismas y con lo que las rodea. Las genealogías.
Con todo, es ternura ante la vida y los miedos. Es fortaleza y palabra ante lo injusto.
Refugio acoge pero también quita el suelo seguro bajo los pies. Te ayuda a abrazar, de alguna forma, la impermanencia y el dolor. La muerte como algo que simplemente es. Lentamente.
Eso -y tanto más- es este libro. Y yo voy a vivir, a partir de ahora, con ecos de él.
En este libro, Terry Tempest Williams nos sumerge en su mundo, atravesado por el Gran Lago Salado (su fauna, sus crecidas, su inclemencia, su sacralidad) y el cáncer que vive su madre. Ella, perteneciente al “clan de las mujeres de un solo pecho”, nos conduce con voz lúcida a través de sus vivencias y pensamientos íntimos.
Entre la biografía y el ensayo ecologista, establece una simbiosis clara (digo ciencia y digo también magia) entre la naturaleza y nosotros mismos (nosotros, que qué somos si no naturaleza). La calma y la tempestad. Sentirse o no salvo. Cuidar el nido, migrar en bandada. O en soledad. La familia, la maternidad y crianza. La naturaleza siendo cobijo pero también grito. Los intentos humanos para parar el lago por intereses económicos. Los huevos vaciados de las aves, nuestros úteros, los animales que atacamos, las pruebas nucleares, los cánceres que van tomándonos. La necesidad de caminar desde la muerte hacia la vida. Las mujeres en eje consigo mismas y con lo que las rodea. Las genealogías.
Con todo, es ternura ante la vida y los miedos. Es fortaleza y palabra ante lo injusto.
Refugio acoge pero también quita el suelo seguro bajo los pies. Te ayuda a abrazar, de alguna forma, la impermanencia y el dolor. La muerte como algo que simplemente es. Lentamente.
Eso -y tanto más- es este libro. Y yo voy a vivir, a partir de ahora, con ecos de él.
October 7, 2017
This book is the sort of beautiful that makes your soul ache.
I've seen reviews criticize the dialogue as not sounding at all natural enough, and while I think those criticisms are indeed fair, I'll admit I hardly noticed, so swept up was I in the maternal relationships of the book, and of an ever-changing bird refuge as a metaphor for a family's wholeness.
This book is about so many stark and important and timeless truths, but for me, this book is about saying goodbye to people who make up the very fabric of your being, and how so often that leaves you reeling. I really haven't read a book that better encapsulates what it's like to watch a loved one pass from this world. The sheer sacredness of that time is something so difficult to comprehend if you haven't been there, but something so tangible if you have. It's like belonging to a secret club no one really wants to join.
If you're struggling with the loss of a loved one, I highly recommend reading this book. Even if you're not, haven't ever, I still highly recommend reading this book. Empathy is such a gift.
This book is also a good fit for birders, for conservationists, for anyone living in Utah or just traveling through, and definitely for anyone who has ever been fascinated by the Great Salt Lake.
[Four-point-five feather-laden stars for so many beautiful birds, and for the women who teach us how to fly.]
I've seen reviews criticize the dialogue as not sounding at all natural enough, and while I think those criticisms are indeed fair, I'll admit I hardly noticed, so swept up was I in the maternal relationships of the book, and of an ever-changing bird refuge as a metaphor for a family's wholeness.
This book is about so many stark and important and timeless truths, but for me, this book is about saying goodbye to people who make up the very fabric of your being, and how so often that leaves you reeling. I really haven't read a book that better encapsulates what it's like to watch a loved one pass from this world. The sheer sacredness of that time is something so difficult to comprehend if you haven't been there, but something so tangible if you have. It's like belonging to a secret club no one really wants to join.
If you're struggling with the loss of a loved one, I highly recommend reading this book. Even if you're not, haven't ever, I still highly recommend reading this book. Empathy is such a gift.
This book is also a good fit for birders, for conservationists, for anyone living in Utah or just traveling through, and definitely for anyone who has ever been fascinated by the Great Salt Lake.
[Four-point-five feather-laden stars for so many beautiful birds, and for the women who teach us how to fly.]
June 10, 2014
I first read this book in 2000, and I knew it was "good," but it didn't draw me in. I've taught her epilogue, "Clan of the One-Breasted Women," several times, and I'm rereading *Refuge* because I assigned it.
It is brilliant. Tempest Williams writes, about her mother's ovarian cancer--and that of her grandmothers and aunts--which Tempest Williams believes was caused by nuclear testing. But it's about more than that: it's about how the land and water are tied so closely to our bodies and the destruction that has affected the entire system. She also shows how her love for nature was ingrained in her by the Mormon culture, the very system that encourages obedience--an obedience that is contributing to the destruction.
It's pretty deep, man.
It is brilliant. Tempest Williams writes, about her mother's ovarian cancer--and that of her grandmothers and aunts--which Tempest Williams believes was caused by nuclear testing. But it's about more than that: it's about how the land and water are tied so closely to our bodies and the destruction that has affected the entire system. She also shows how her love for nature was ingrained in her by the Mormon culture, the very system that encourages obedience--an obedience that is contributing to the destruction.
It's pretty deep, man.
January 13, 2019
'Refugio' es una lectura inabarcable en sensaciones. Tan delicada y tan cruel. De una espiritualidad contagiosa y dolorosamente física. La presencia de la muerte es opresiva por momentos y liberadora a veces. Es tan humanista que retrata lo mejor y lo peor del ser humano. Nos recuerda el deber de quedarnos con todo lo bueno que nos rodea y de defenderlo de lo hostil. Una invitación a, en momentos de duda, elegir siempre la vida.
October 9, 2023
I’ve never read a book like this one before. I’ll probably be thinking about it for a long time. The author juxtaposes the rising and flooding of the Great Salt Lake in the 80s with her mother’s (and her whole family’s) long battle with cancer.
I’m not a big fan of cancer books generally. I think they tend to feel contrived and hollow. But not this one. Williams is honest and real about the range of feelings and experiences by all involved. She tempers the drama of the emotions by showing them through memories and through the behavior of birds. And as a child who has experienced losing a parent from cancer over a several years span, the mix of ups and downs and good days and bad days, the memories that come back at weird times sometimes healing you and sometimes ripping open your grief anew, all that felt very genuine to me.
I loved the comparison of Williams’ beloved bird refuge being underwater and the birds needing to find a new place to go, to her thoughts about her mother and other women being a refuge to her all her life and now her needing to find a new place to go. But then at the end the possibility of returning to the refuge (both senses of it) and acknowledging the changes but also the strength and the hope for the future. All the bird and water imagery was so well done.
And the setting. I’d be remiss not to talk about the setting. I have grown up and lived my whole life along the Wasatch Front. I grew up in a farming town on the north eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, not so very far from Antelope Island. So the geographical landscape she’s describing is home. I know it so well. I remember once, an old farmer in my community telling about how the buffalo from Antelope Island would sometimes wade across the lake and eat I. The farmers’ fields. I don’t think that happens any more.
I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So I am very familiar with the religious and cultural setting of the book as well. Although, admittedly, the author and I see it differently in many places. That’s ok. (For one example, I don’t feel that my religion requires me to remain silent on issues and topics that matter. As a people we are encouraged to vote, and to participate in local governments if we feel so inclined, among other things. But I wonder if that’s a generational cultural difference? And also, for me I found the death of my father brought me closer to my religion and gave me a deeper, closer understanding of what I believe. I feel the author also found deeper understanding in what she believed but it took her outside of the religion she grew up with, if that makes sense?) But from a setting perspective, I’ve never read anything closer to home than this book. Add in some of the coincidental similarities between her mother’s cancer journey and my father’s —like the many stays at LDS Hospital (whose cancer floor I used to be able to navigate with my eyes closed), sneaking a patient out of the cancer ward to be outside, marigolds, etc— then yes, this setting, even more real to me than I thought possible from a book.
I loved the Utah history in this book. The events in this book mostly take place a few years before I was born. It was fascinating to hear about the vastly different issues they were facing back then regarding the Great Salt Lake. Because today, in severe drought conditions, the main focus is how to keep water in and not dry up the lake bed. It made me think about the cycles and seasons something or someone can go through in a lifetime.
I loved many of the thoughts about strong women standing up and reclaiming the earth and finding balance. Nurture.
And I loved the idea of death as a rebirth. And as a journey, a long process, for everyone involved not just the person dying. And I like that the author goes looking for her dead. I have also found myself doing that, though in different ways than the author employs in this book. Maybe we all do that, and in our own ways.
Anyways, for me this book was a must read. But I don’t know if it will resonate with everyone in the same way. I’d be choosy who I’d recommend it to, for all the things I talked about above. As for me, I’ll be reading more Terry Tempest Williams books in the future.
I’m not a big fan of cancer books generally. I think they tend to feel contrived and hollow. But not this one. Williams is honest and real about the range of feelings and experiences by all involved. She tempers the drama of the emotions by showing them through memories and through the behavior of birds. And as a child who has experienced losing a parent from cancer over a several years span, the mix of ups and downs and good days and bad days, the memories that come back at weird times sometimes healing you and sometimes ripping open your grief anew, all that felt very genuine to me.
I loved the comparison of Williams’ beloved bird refuge being underwater and the birds needing to find a new place to go, to her thoughts about her mother and other women being a refuge to her all her life and now her needing to find a new place to go. But then at the end the possibility of returning to the refuge (both senses of it) and acknowledging the changes but also the strength and the hope for the future. All the bird and water imagery was so well done.
And the setting. I’d be remiss not to talk about the setting. I have grown up and lived my whole life along the Wasatch Front. I grew up in a farming town on the north eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, not so very far from Antelope Island. So the geographical landscape she’s describing is home. I know it so well. I remember once, an old farmer in my community telling about how the buffalo from Antelope Island would sometimes wade across the lake and eat I. The farmers’ fields. I don’t think that happens any more.
I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So I am very familiar with the religious and cultural setting of the book as well. Although, admittedly, the author and I see it differently in many places. That’s ok. (For one example, I don’t feel that my religion requires me to remain silent on issues and topics that matter. As a people we are encouraged to vote, and to participate in local governments if we feel so inclined, among other things. But I wonder if that’s a generational cultural difference? And also, for me I found the death of my father brought me closer to my religion and gave me a deeper, closer understanding of what I believe. I feel the author also found deeper understanding in what she believed but it took her outside of the religion she grew up with, if that makes sense?) But from a setting perspective, I’ve never read anything closer to home than this book. Add in some of the coincidental similarities between her mother’s cancer journey and my father’s —like the many stays at LDS Hospital (whose cancer floor I used to be able to navigate with my eyes closed), sneaking a patient out of the cancer ward to be outside, marigolds, etc— then yes, this setting, even more real to me than I thought possible from a book.
I loved the Utah history in this book. The events in this book mostly take place a few years before I was born. It was fascinating to hear about the vastly different issues they were facing back then regarding the Great Salt Lake. Because today, in severe drought conditions, the main focus is how to keep water in and not dry up the lake bed. It made me think about the cycles and seasons something or someone can go through in a lifetime.
I loved many of the thoughts about strong women standing up and reclaiming the earth and finding balance. Nurture.
And I loved the idea of death as a rebirth. And as a journey, a long process, for everyone involved not just the person dying. And I like that the author goes looking for her dead. I have also found myself doing that, though in different ways than the author employs in this book. Maybe we all do that, and in our own ways.
Anyways, for me this book was a must read. But I don’t know if it will resonate with everyone in the same way. I’d be choosy who I’d recommend it to, for all the things I talked about above. As for me, I’ll be reading more Terry Tempest Williams books in the future.
April 11, 2024
What a beautiful example of how books can allow you to look into others lives and experience things you haven’t yet. Terry Tempest Williams allows you to experience grief alongside her and her family and the ugly, horrific scenes of death. Her writing changes you and feels like an intimate and sacred ceremony. I am so grateful to be able to read books like this.
“The snow continues to fall. Red apples cling to bare branches. I just returned from Tamra Crocker Pulfer’s funeral. It was a reunion of childhood friends and family. Our neighborhood sat on wooden benches row after row in the chapel, I sat next to mother and wondered how much time we had left together.”
“The snow continues to fall. Red apples cling to bare branches. I just returned from Tamra Crocker Pulfer’s funeral. It was a reunion of childhood friends and family. Our neighborhood sat on wooden benches row after row in the chapel, I sat next to mother and wondered how much time we had left together.”
January 5, 2025
"Yo creo que en esta vida tenemos que hacer las cosas por una buena razón: porque disfrutamos haciéndolas, sin esperar nada a cambio. Si no, sufriremos decepciones constantemente."
May 20, 2024
The painful embrace of death. Reminds me why I hate hospitals so much.
This is a book I want to revisit in a couple of years.
"But the feeling I could not purge from my soul was that without a mother, one no longer has the luxury of being a child."
This is a book I want to revisit in a couple of years.
"But the feeling I could not purge from my soul was that without a mother, one no longer has the luxury of being a child."
April 18, 2024
I don’t want cancer
February 20, 2013
I finished Refuge at least two weeks ago and have spent a lot of time wondering why I didn't like it as much as I expected to. That's not to say there was nothing I liked about it. I learned more about the Great Salt Lake--its structure and the birds that make their home there--than I have in years living near by. I loved that and the way she made me think about these valleys and mountains as shared places: native species with an ever burgeoning population.
Maybe my familiarity with the area was the downfall of my enjoyment. It started with a small thing, okay, a really petty thing that nearly drove me crazy. Evidently the author and others who spend lots of time communing with the lake and its inhabitants don't use the article "the" when they refer to it. She'd say something like, "I drove to Great Salt Lake." Most locals would say, "I drove to the Great Salt Lake." It pulled me out of the flow of the reading every time. It seemed artificial and after a while even reverential. I swear I could hear James Earl Jones saying, "Great Salt Lake" every time I read a sentence like that. I started to feel like I needed to genuflect or light incense. There was a mystical, mythological sense she was bringing to her description of the lake that I just couldn't buy.
At the center of the book is the weaving of her mother's cancer and the floods in 1983. My family has been no stranger to cancer in the last few years, and I did connect more to that part of the story. I respected the author's willingness to talk about the profound experiences possible while dealing with the suffering that cancer can entail. Here the spiritual quality felt genuine and I could understand that she would carry that sense with her as she spent time with nature.
I must speak to one thing; a very different perception of the women in a shared religion and culture. She said of women who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), "In Mormon culture, authority is respected, obedience is revered, and independent thinking is not. I was taught as a young girl not to 'make waves' or 'rock the boat'." Like Williams, I come from a family of Mormon pioneers, and my perception of our women is one of profound wisdom and strength. I was raised by a mother who believed wholeheartedly in our beliefs which she passed on to me, and she never taught me I couldn't ask questions or rock the boat.
Maybe my familiarity with the area was the downfall of my enjoyment. It started with a small thing, okay, a really petty thing that nearly drove me crazy. Evidently the author and others who spend lots of time communing with the lake and its inhabitants don't use the article "the" when they refer to it. She'd say something like, "I drove to Great Salt Lake." Most locals would say, "I drove to the Great Salt Lake." It pulled me out of the flow of the reading every time. It seemed artificial and after a while even reverential. I swear I could hear James Earl Jones saying, "Great Salt Lake" every time I read a sentence like that. I started to feel like I needed to genuflect or light incense. There was a mystical, mythological sense she was bringing to her description of the lake that I just couldn't buy.
At the center of the book is the weaving of her mother's cancer and the floods in 1983. My family has been no stranger to cancer in the last few years, and I did connect more to that part of the story. I respected the author's willingness to talk about the profound experiences possible while dealing with the suffering that cancer can entail. Here the spiritual quality felt genuine and I could understand that she would carry that sense with her as she spent time with nature.
I must speak to one thing; a very different perception of the women in a shared religion and culture. She said of women who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), "In Mormon culture, authority is respected, obedience is revered, and independent thinking is not. I was taught as a young girl not to 'make waves' or 'rock the boat'." Like Williams, I come from a family of Mormon pioneers, and my perception of our women is one of profound wisdom and strength. I was raised by a mother who believed wholeheartedly in our beliefs which she passed on to me, and she never taught me I couldn't ask questions or rock the boat.
September 5, 2018
«Qué tiene de especial la relación con una madre, que es capaz de curarnos o herirnos? Su útero es el primer paisaje que habitamos. Es donde aprendemos a responder: a movernos, a escuchar, a nutrirnos y a crecer (...) El entorno materno es perfectamente seguro: oscuro, cálido y húmedo. Es una morada dentro de lo Femenino».
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Estaba esperando a llegar a mi refugio Zamorano para poder leer este libro que reconcilia con lo salvaje, lo esencial, lo primario. Tempest trenza en él Ecología-Cáncer-Adaptación y el resultado es una obra didáctica, comprometida y tierna a la vez. Didáctica porque nos va hablando de las especies de aves que habitan el Gran Lago Salado, esa región de la America profunda, Utah, tan desconocida como misteriosa; comprometida porque cada perla de sabiduría es también una reivindicación ecológica y política; tierna porque narra cómo su madre afronta el diagnóstico de cáncer preparándose para morir mientras toda la familia se resiste a ello.
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Una obra que tiene todo: momentos para indignarse, para aprender, para llorar, para reír, para reflexionar, para soñar, sentir el calor del sol y la brisa, darse un baño salado, dejarse llevar sin resistirse... mientras te acribillan los mosquitos. La vida misma. Esas conversaciones de tres generaciones de mujeres: abuela-madre-hija son inolvidables. Un libro que reconcilia con la vida y nos empuja a apreciar lo que tenemos; un libro que nos enseña a amar la naturaleza salvaje pero que nos obliga a despertar ante el desastre ecológico que estamos provocando. En definitiva, un libro para abrazar y después ir a abrazar a los que amamos.
#Refugio #TerryTempestWilliams #MaternidadesLit #Ecologismo #Cáncer #Vidaymuerte #Librosquedejanhuella #Vocesdemujeres #Librosquesanan
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Estaba esperando a llegar a mi refugio Zamorano para poder leer este libro que reconcilia con lo salvaje, lo esencial, lo primario. Tempest trenza en él Ecología-Cáncer-Adaptación y el resultado es una obra didáctica, comprometida y tierna a la vez. Didáctica porque nos va hablando de las especies de aves que habitan el Gran Lago Salado, esa región de la America profunda, Utah, tan desconocida como misteriosa; comprometida porque cada perla de sabiduría es también una reivindicación ecológica y política; tierna porque narra cómo su madre afronta el diagnóstico de cáncer preparándose para morir mientras toda la familia se resiste a ello.
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Una obra que tiene todo: momentos para indignarse, para aprender, para llorar, para reír, para reflexionar, para soñar, sentir el calor del sol y la brisa, darse un baño salado, dejarse llevar sin resistirse... mientras te acribillan los mosquitos. La vida misma. Esas conversaciones de tres generaciones de mujeres: abuela-madre-hija son inolvidables. Un libro que reconcilia con la vida y nos empuja a apreciar lo que tenemos; un libro que nos enseña a amar la naturaleza salvaje pero que nos obliga a despertar ante el desastre ecológico que estamos provocando. En definitiva, un libro para abrazar y después ir a abrazar a los que amamos.
#Refugio #TerryTempestWilliams #MaternidadesLit #Ecologismo #Cáncer #Vidaymuerte #Librosquedejanhuella #Vocesdemujeres #Librosquesanan
July 21, 2024
Beautifully sad meditation on grief and finding refuge in landscapes both exterior (Great Salt Lake, Great Basin) and interior (human heart and mind) in the midst of changes and tragedies both personal and sweeping in scale.
A couple minor quibbles: there are a fair number of unnecessary commas in the text, and also a few lines in one section where it seems like TTW is overly-romanticizing Fremont and Anasazi cultures.
On a similar note, a larger issue is that any mention beyond the surface level of TTW's family being some of the original settler colonialists in the Salt Lake Valley is absent, which would have been good to include and would have added another level of nuance to the text. While an extended discussion on settler colonialism and its impacts in the region wasn't the point of this book, her proclamations of deep familial ties to the land, etc. etc. ring somewhat hollow at times because of this obvious disjunction.
Nonetheless, this was a beautiful, well-written story that will stay with me for some time. Reading this book while Great Salt Lake water levels continue to decline, as opposed to the rise of the 1980s that TTW chronicles, was thought-provoking and chilling at times. Definitely going to need a palate cleanser or two after this one.
A couple minor quibbles: there are a fair number of unnecessary commas in the text, and also a few lines in one section where it seems like TTW is overly-romanticizing Fremont and Anasazi cultures.
On a similar note, a larger issue is that any mention beyond the surface level of TTW's family being some of the original settler colonialists in the Salt Lake Valley is absent, which would have been good to include and would have added another level of nuance to the text. While an extended discussion on settler colonialism and its impacts in the region wasn't the point of this book, her proclamations of deep familial ties to the land, etc. etc. ring somewhat hollow at times because of this obvious disjunction.
Nonetheless, this was a beautiful, well-written story that will stay with me for some time. Reading this book while Great Salt Lake water levels continue to decline, as opposed to the rise of the 1980s that TTW chronicles, was thought-provoking and chilling at times. Definitely going to need a palate cleanser or two after this one.
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