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Breaking into the Backcountry
Writing with an elegant simplicity and resilient reverence, Edwards proves to be an astute and passionate observer of both human and Mother Nature. —Carol Haggas, Booklist Online In 2001 Steve Edwards won a writing contest. The prize was seven months of “unparalleled solitude” as the caretaker of a ninety-two-acre backcountry homestead along the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River in southwestern Oregon. Young, recently divorced, and humbled by the prospect of so much time alone, he left behind his job as a college English teacher in Indiana and headed west for a remote but comfortable cabin in the rugged Klamath Mountains. Well aware of what could go wrong living two hours from town with no electricity and no neighbors, Edwards was surprised by what could go right. In prose that is by turns lyrical, introspective, and funny, Breaking into the Backcountry is the story of what he that alone, in a wild place, each day is a challenge and a gift. Whether chronicling the pleasures of a day-long fishing trip, his first encounter with a black bear, a lightning storm and the threat of fire, the beauty of a steelhead, the attacks of 9/11, or a silence so profound that a black-tailed deer chewing grass outside his window could wake him from sleep, Edwards’s careful evocation of the river canyon and its effect on him testifies to the enduring power of wilderness to transform a life.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
16 people are currently reading
319 people want to read
About the author
Steve Edwards
1 book40 followersSteve Edwards lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 13, 2022
This was a great book. The description of nature and encounters with animals was beautifully written. There was also humor and introspection and an honest look at what it means to be truly alone in the wilderness. Recommended read. If you’re familiar with The Sun magazine, he’s one of their authors, so you can be assured the writing is outstanding
January 28, 2019
This is a very well-written book that explores what solitude does to people. While purists may gripe a bit that Edwards didn't spend the entire time alone, anyone who has spent even a couple days by themselves knows that's all it takes to understand the fruitful tightrope you walk between the sublime and desperation that produces some of our best thoughts. Edwards adds heavily to that thought lineage, and for anyone who enjoys poignant descriptions of landscapes and the creature that live there, that alone makes the book worth it. If you like Thoreau, John Haines, Mary Oliver, and all in that vein, this is a terrific read. There's great admiration for wilderness, and adoring descriptions of everything in it, but it's dark in all the right places
December 29, 2023
This book was a gift on the discoveries of solitude, the beauty of the wilderness, and the zen of sitting with pain.
November 21, 2014
Biased because I count myself lucky enough to know the author. But this was a job well done at capturing his surroundings. Edwards is also noticeably adept at choosing his words.
April 18, 2018
I read an essay by Edwards on LitHub this winter and appreciated it. He wrote of his summer working nights in an Indiana factory. I looked for more of his writing and found this memoir of his solitary seven months in a cabin in the area around Rogue River, Oregon.
Maybe it goes all the way back to my love of The Boxcar Children but I enjoy stories of those who make do in unusual circumstances. Edwards was not totally alone. Visitors came and went; he made weekly trips into town for supplies; and even left the site a few times for longer visits elsewhere.
His descriptions of the land around him are wonderful. So also are his descriptions of being alone with its benefits but also at times its terrors. He tells of his guilt when he battles the mice that annoy him but are also God's creatures. He fights off the terrible memories of a failed marriage and at one point, a vision in the night gives him peace.
I don't think Edwards ever wrote the novel he planned to write during those solo months. He has written more essays--some with the theme of fatherhood--which I plan to find and read.
Maybe it goes all the way back to my love of The Boxcar Children but I enjoy stories of those who make do in unusual circumstances. Edwards was not totally alone. Visitors came and went; he made weekly trips into town for supplies; and even left the site a few times for longer visits elsewhere.
His descriptions of the land around him are wonderful. So also are his descriptions of being alone with its benefits but also at times its terrors. He tells of his guilt when he battles the mice that annoy him but are also God's creatures. He fights off the terrible memories of a failed marriage and at one point, a vision in the night gives him peace.
I don't think Edwards ever wrote the novel he planned to write during those solo months. He has written more essays--some with the theme of fatherhood--which I plan to find and read.
January 25, 2023
I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time and I’m so very glad it didn’t disappoint my high expectations.
I didn’t realize it when I started reading but it was a great choice if this ends up being the last book I finish before going into labor. These essays about his seven-month adventure living in the remote homestead outside of Grants Pass, Oregon in 2001 were absolutely lovingly crafted, honest, and thoughtful. As I’m about to head into a season in my life with little solitude — or quiet — with two young boys at home, it was a wonderful change of pace to contemplate a life experience of loneliness (especially one embracing that loneliness). I’ve only spent a week in rural Oregon for a nature writing conference but this book reminded me of that time and how even in that short time frame, I could see how time alone in nature can be so transformative.
This book is one I’ll return to again and again (I certainly dogeared enough pages) and perhaps even teach. I’ve enjoyed many of Steve Edwards’ essays online but I have the feeling this won’t be the last book of his I read.
I didn’t realize it when I started reading but it was a great choice if this ends up being the last book I finish before going into labor. These essays about his seven-month adventure living in the remote homestead outside of Grants Pass, Oregon in 2001 were absolutely lovingly crafted, honest, and thoughtful. As I’m about to head into a season in my life with little solitude — or quiet — with two young boys at home, it was a wonderful change of pace to contemplate a life experience of loneliness (especially one embracing that loneliness). I’ve only spent a week in rural Oregon for a nature writing conference but this book reminded me of that time and how even in that short time frame, I could see how time alone in nature can be so transformative.
This book is one I’ll return to again and again (I certainly dogeared enough pages) and perhaps even teach. I’ve enjoyed many of Steve Edwards’ essays online but I have the feeling this won’t be the last book of his I read.
February 27, 2023
Since there are no half star options, I rounded up from 2.5. Steve Edwards is capable of writing a solid sentences, but the narrative falls among those that suffer from the over use of the possessive. We understand who the stove belongs to. But then again, had Edwards avoided the abundant use of possessive statements the 175 page book would log a mere 130 pages. The book reads like a dusted off diary or Myspace blog post that attempts to offer connections and insights that are so lacking in depth it'd be an insult shallowness to call them shallow. The best offering found within the book are the references to better books and writers, like Zane Grey. If you still feel called to read this book, don't make the same mistake I did by buying it at full price. You'll be much happier with yourself by snagging a used copy.
March 24, 2023
Was I jealous of the author, living for months on end in an isolated homestead with rarely more than the Oregon sun and a couple of twitchy deer for company? Yes. And no. In some ways, this is every introvert's dream—at least the introverts who also enjoy trees and such. Edwards describes an exquisite loneliness that, in its depth and breadth, transforms into something that isn't loneliness at all but an entity and a companion in its own right. But this deep isolation is not always a gentle companion. The quiet on the homestead bares all the inner turmoil that the author brought with him—national and personal anxieties, broken relationships, and more. I am grateful to Steve Edwards for so generously welcoming his readers into this sacred, painful, lonely place.
March 10, 2020
A lovely and thoughtful meditation on solitude and wilderness that doesn't take either for granted. Part of it is written during and immediately after 9/11, and makes for an interesting take on the day's events.
February 11, 2024
The River Flows Through Me
I really liked being taken by a young writer on a journey both into the backcountry and his creative process. Excellent descriptions of Oregons rivers, wildlife, and his learning to deal with solitude.
I really liked being taken by a young writer on a journey both into the backcountry and his creative process. Excellent descriptions of Oregons rivers, wildlife, and his learning to deal with solitude.
December 19, 2019
Simply gorgeous. A wonderful meditation on the relationship we most often neglect: the one with the world around us.
January 18, 2020
A thoroughly enjoyable memoir of the transformational effects of solitude in a beautiful natural setting. I envy the author’s experience, and appreciate that he shared so much of it in this book.
January 19, 2023
awesome read!
Anyone who loves and appreciates the outdoors from any perspective will appreciate this one! Excellent book and really blew me away!
Anyone who loves and appreciates the outdoors from any perspective will appreciate this one! Excellent book and really blew me away!
September 1, 2023
A quiet and simple book. I want to go fly fishing.
September 4, 2023
I loved his honesty in sharing his journey and written beautifully.
December 14, 2023
Breaking into the Backcountry
This book was a gift on the discoveries of solitude, the beauty of the wilderness, and the zen of sitting with pain.
This book was a gift on the discoveries of solitude, the beauty of the wilderness, and the zen of sitting with pain.
March 30, 2025
This book was so well-written. Edwards has a gift for description that put me right where he was.
Read
April 14, 2025engaging story. Good vibes
October 12, 2010
I've always loved books that catch the reader unawares, either because they take us to places we didn't expect to go or because they show us parts of ourselves we didn't know. Or best yet, both.
Breaking into the Backcountry does both, with a great deal of quiet and unassuming grace. It's the kind of story that could go all macho: young writer recovering from divorce wins the PEN Northwest/Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Award, which gives him a small stipend and seven months alone in Oregon's wild Rogue River Canyon as the caretaker of a backcountry homestead a long two hours from the nearest town.
Edwards goes the harder and more honest route of entering what Zen Buddhists sometimes call "beginner's mind," conjuring up the naive, inexperienced and sometimes fearful 26-year-old that he was when he and his Dad set off to drive the 2,316 miles from his hometown in Indiana to the wilderness homestead in southeastern Oregon. Back at home "still living in the town where I was born," life has begun to feel "Not terrible. Just sort of ordinary." On the road, traveling a distance as "unfathomable" to him as the distance between the Earth and the moon, Edwards muses that despite all of his reading--the manual on the homestead and the care and feeding of its propane stoves and lights, plumbing, the pond to supply firefighting and irrigation water and apple orchards, of books on the Pacific Northwest--"I still don't totally know what to expect. The moon might be more familiar to me than the Rogue River Canyon."
Over the course of this gentle and beautiful narrative, Edwards faces his fears, his loneliness and his exhilaration at the spectacular wild landscape where he finds himself, a place of huge trees, deep canyons, bears, deer, mountain lion, strangers who might or might not be friendly, forest fires, and the cold waters of the Rogue River itself. He chronicles both his missteps and his inching progress toward grace with a clear-eyed honesty that shows his experiences as the kind of transformative journey we all aim for.
"I watch a dragonfly nymph on the end of a long blade of grass. Sometime in the past few hours it has emerged from the water, climbed to this perch, and begun to shed its shell. I can see its thin blue abdomen, its white wings. ... Dragonflies are the insect I most associate with my father, our fishing trips. The way a pair of them would land on the tip of his rod and flutter off, chasing each other in wild zigzags. But this one, on its wind-bent blade of grass, is a thing so small and vulnerable. Fearing that it might fall into the water and get eaten up, I grab my walking stick and offer it as a safer, more sturdy platform for the dragonfly to crawl onto. And of course—of course—in my clumsiness, my thinking I can improve on millions of years of evolution, I accidentally knock it into the water, where it drowns. ...
"If anything redeems the hemorrhaging mice, the drowned dragonfly, the knowing bullfrog glancing up at me as chemicals rain down on his head and home, it's that the love I feel here—the kind and terrible love—is large enough, empty enough, to ingest the poison of my transgressions without itself becoming contaminated. Regardless of my fear and ineptitude, my faithlessness, my feelings of being unworthy of the gift set in front of me, moments of grace somehow come."
So they do for all of us, if only we have the gratitude and humility to notice them. In Breaking into the Backcountry, Steve Edwards shows that he does.
Breaking into the Backcountry does both, with a great deal of quiet and unassuming grace. It's the kind of story that could go all macho: young writer recovering from divorce wins the PEN Northwest/Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Award, which gives him a small stipend and seven months alone in Oregon's wild Rogue River Canyon as the caretaker of a backcountry homestead a long two hours from the nearest town.
Edwards goes the harder and more honest route of entering what Zen Buddhists sometimes call "beginner's mind," conjuring up the naive, inexperienced and sometimes fearful 26-year-old that he was when he and his Dad set off to drive the 2,316 miles from his hometown in Indiana to the wilderness homestead in southeastern Oregon. Back at home "still living in the town where I was born," life has begun to feel "Not terrible. Just sort of ordinary." On the road, traveling a distance as "unfathomable" to him as the distance between the Earth and the moon, Edwards muses that despite all of his reading--the manual on the homestead and the care and feeding of its propane stoves and lights, plumbing, the pond to supply firefighting and irrigation water and apple orchards, of books on the Pacific Northwest--"I still don't totally know what to expect. The moon might be more familiar to me than the Rogue River Canyon."
Over the course of this gentle and beautiful narrative, Edwards faces his fears, his loneliness and his exhilaration at the spectacular wild landscape where he finds himself, a place of huge trees, deep canyons, bears, deer, mountain lion, strangers who might or might not be friendly, forest fires, and the cold waters of the Rogue River itself. He chronicles both his missteps and his inching progress toward grace with a clear-eyed honesty that shows his experiences as the kind of transformative journey we all aim for.
"I watch a dragonfly nymph on the end of a long blade of grass. Sometime in the past few hours it has emerged from the water, climbed to this perch, and begun to shed its shell. I can see its thin blue abdomen, its white wings. ... Dragonflies are the insect I most associate with my father, our fishing trips. The way a pair of them would land on the tip of his rod and flutter off, chasing each other in wild zigzags. But this one, on its wind-bent blade of grass, is a thing so small and vulnerable. Fearing that it might fall into the water and get eaten up, I grab my walking stick and offer it as a safer, more sturdy platform for the dragonfly to crawl onto. And of course—of course—in my clumsiness, my thinking I can improve on millions of years of evolution, I accidentally knock it into the water, where it drowns. ...
"If anything redeems the hemorrhaging mice, the drowned dragonfly, the knowing bullfrog glancing up at me as chemicals rain down on his head and home, it's that the love I feel here—the kind and terrible love—is large enough, empty enough, to ingest the poison of my transgressions without itself becoming contaminated. Regardless of my fear and ineptitude, my faithlessness, my feelings of being unworthy of the gift set in front of me, moments of grace somehow come."
So they do for all of us, if only we have the gratitude and humility to notice them. In Breaking into the Backcountry, Steve Edwards shows that he does.
May 2, 2021
Compelling story of a newbie in the Oregon wilderness. Fun to read.
September 6, 2017
Lately, I've been having trouble reading. My two-book-a-week pleasure read had become a thing of the past. Nothing could hold my interest past the first 20 pages or so. And I mean nothing. Nothing in any genre or even beloved classics that I have returned to over and over again throughout the years.
So imagine my surprise when I picked up Steve Edwards' "Breaking Into the Backcountry." Sometimes I can read memoirs when I can read nothing else and although the material for this book wasn't as historical as say, a Holocaust memoir or a memoir of the Civil Rights movement, I decided to give it a read.
Steve Edwards is a writer and an author, and yes, those two things can be mutually exclusive. His story begins in 2001 when he is 26 years old and faced with the life-changing events of a crumbled marriage in small-town Indiana and winning a writer's retreat (the PEN/Northwest Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency) scheduled from April to November in a secluded cabin located on 92 acres near the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River in Oregon. He drives up to the cabin with his father in a pickup truck not made for the weather and that's where his adventures begin. If you're expecting him to outrun mountain lions, wrestle bears and hunt his dinner with a bow and arrow or not see another human soul you're going to be disappointed. Edwards' sojourn into the backcountry of Oregon didn't suddenly turn him into Grizzly Adams. No, a much deeper transformation took place and as I read about it, I found myself lost in the story and understanding things about life and people and myself that I never pondered before. For the first time I understood why some people have to own everything and subdue it for it to have any value to them. I could see how people can be so complex, capable of both selfishness and generosity, kindness and indifference, simultaneously; and how we are never really able to allow either action to define who they truly are. I realized how fear takes people from their mundane lives and suddenly makes them feel important, and how that new-found importance can puff them up enough to do and accept terrible things.
Even though Edwards' skill in committing his experience into words is formidable, I am loathe to quote any part of this book, because I feel to do so would diminish it. It has to be received in totality, like a truth, to retain its purity and power. As we are all interconnected, humans and nature and the universe, so is Edwards' story, and the beauty of each element must be appreciated with the whole.
In short, reading about Edwards' seven months alone in the wilds of southwestern Oregon gave me greater understanding and appreciation of my own asphalt and concrete world. Seeing the way he came to view bears, deer, mice, dragonflies and even a banana slug has changed the way I view human beings. This book is a gem. If you are looking for an inner journey told plain and true, that will lead you to revelations of your own, this book is for you. Read it. See the world with different eyes and see your world and yourself differently, too.
So imagine my surprise when I picked up Steve Edwards' "Breaking Into the Backcountry." Sometimes I can read memoirs when I can read nothing else and although the material for this book wasn't as historical as say, a Holocaust memoir or a memoir of the Civil Rights movement, I decided to give it a read.
Steve Edwards is a writer and an author, and yes, those two things can be mutually exclusive. His story begins in 2001 when he is 26 years old and faced with the life-changing events of a crumbled marriage in small-town Indiana and winning a writer's retreat (the PEN/Northwest Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency) scheduled from April to November in a secluded cabin located on 92 acres near the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River in Oregon. He drives up to the cabin with his father in a pickup truck not made for the weather and that's where his adventures begin. If you're expecting him to outrun mountain lions, wrestle bears and hunt his dinner with a bow and arrow or not see another human soul you're going to be disappointed. Edwards' sojourn into the backcountry of Oregon didn't suddenly turn him into Grizzly Adams. No, a much deeper transformation took place and as I read about it, I found myself lost in the story and understanding things about life and people and myself that I never pondered before. For the first time I understood why some people have to own everything and subdue it for it to have any value to them. I could see how people can be so complex, capable of both selfishness and generosity, kindness and indifference, simultaneously; and how we are never really able to allow either action to define who they truly are. I realized how fear takes people from their mundane lives and suddenly makes them feel important, and how that new-found importance can puff them up enough to do and accept terrible things.
Even though Edwards' skill in committing his experience into words is formidable, I am loathe to quote any part of this book, because I feel to do so would diminish it. It has to be received in totality, like a truth, to retain its purity and power. As we are all interconnected, humans and nature and the universe, so is Edwards' story, and the beauty of each element must be appreciated with the whole.
In short, reading about Edwards' seven months alone in the wilds of southwestern Oregon gave me greater understanding and appreciation of my own asphalt and concrete world. Seeing the way he came to view bears, deer, mice, dragonflies and even a banana slug has changed the way I view human beings. This book is a gem. If you are looking for an inner journey told plain and true, that will lead you to revelations of your own, this book is for you. Read it. See the world with different eyes and see your world and yourself differently, too.
May 12, 2015
This is a tough one to review; I read it with an eye to reviewing it for Easy Street but I prefer to be able to enthuse about the books I review for them, and I just can't quite get there.
I ended up hoping this is a heavily fictionalized account of what happened while Edwards was on his retreat, because otherwise he was incredibly negligent and irresponsible while he was there. Given how much he talks about keeping things secret that he has just spent pages revealing to the reader, I have to think that is the case. Surely he would realize the game is up when the caretaker and homestead owners and writing retreat organizers read his book and all is revealed?
Because it is autobiographical I realize I am veering dangerously close to criticizing the author rather than the work, and I realize that is bad form. But seriously, when you are staying somewhere that other people are going to be inhabiting after you leave? Don't let the fire-supresson pond dry up. Don't kill the memorial tree planed to honor the family patriarch. Don't let yellow-jackets build a nest under the cabin, even if they do look pretty flying in and out in the early morning light. Don't invite trespassers to stay for lunch. Don't invite trespassers to come back later and go fishing. Don't poach the native fish when _you_ are fishing. Most importantly, from any of several viewpoints: Don't Feed The Bears. I am no backcountry woodsy person, but even I know better than to feed the bears. It's bad for the bears, and it's bad for the writing retreat program's future participants when the bears get habituated to the homestead as a source of treats. That way lies bears causing property damage in quest of food, and someone is liable to get hurt while inhabiting a spot where any emergency services are going to have to helicopter you out, if they can get to you in time at all.
I found the writing to be reasonably engaging. I was surprised on the whole because I expected to come out of reading it with a desire to investigate and possibly participate in the contest and retreat program that sponsored his trip, and instead I was effectively warned off by both the description of his experiences and my conjectures about the aftermath of his tenancy. In the end it read like a cautionary tale without the caution or any redemptive conclusion. In the epilogue he's planning his return to the area with another former participant - if he'd really done all the horrible things he outlines, would he truly be willing to go back and test the forgiveness and generosity of the owners? I don't know, and that unfortunately diminishes my opinion of the book.
I ended up hoping this is a heavily fictionalized account of what happened while Edwards was on his retreat, because otherwise he was incredibly negligent and irresponsible while he was there. Given how much he talks about keeping things secret that he has just spent pages revealing to the reader, I have to think that is the case. Surely he would realize the game is up when the caretaker and homestead owners and writing retreat organizers read his book and all is revealed?
Because it is autobiographical I realize I am veering dangerously close to criticizing the author rather than the work, and I realize that is bad form. But seriously, when you are staying somewhere that other people are going to be inhabiting after you leave? Don't let the fire-supresson pond dry up. Don't kill the memorial tree planed to honor the family patriarch. Don't let yellow-jackets build a nest under the cabin, even if they do look pretty flying in and out in the early morning light. Don't invite trespassers to stay for lunch. Don't invite trespassers to come back later and go fishing. Don't poach the native fish when _you_ are fishing. Most importantly, from any of several viewpoints: Don't Feed The Bears. I am no backcountry woodsy person, but even I know better than to feed the bears. It's bad for the bears, and it's bad for the writing retreat program's future participants when the bears get habituated to the homestead as a source of treats. That way lies bears causing property damage in quest of food, and someone is liable to get hurt while inhabiting a spot where any emergency services are going to have to helicopter you out, if they can get to you in time at all.
I found the writing to be reasonably engaging. I was surprised on the whole because I expected to come out of reading it with a desire to investigate and possibly participate in the contest and retreat program that sponsored his trip, and instead I was effectively warned off by both the description of his experiences and my conjectures about the aftermath of his tenancy. In the end it read like a cautionary tale without the caution or any redemptive conclusion. In the epilogue he's planning his return to the area with another former participant - if he'd really done all the horrible things he outlines, would he truly be willing to go back and test the forgiveness and generosity of the owners? I don't know, and that unfortunately diminishes my opinion of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2012
For much of this book I had questions for the author, things I really wanted to know about his stay at the homestead that he didn't tell me about in the book. Then I decided that maybe the book he wrote was not the book I had been expecting to read.
In the epilogue the author writes that what changed for him after living in the backcountry is that inside him lives a river he can sit beside all morning, a mountain range receding into the dusk, a sky full of stars. The epilogue helped the book make perfect sense to me. The author was deeply moved and forever changed by his time at the homestead as I have been altered by my life in Southern Africa. We hold in our hearts a different view of the world and always have a happy place in our hearts that we can retreat to.
In the epilogue the author writes that what changed for him after living in the backcountry is that inside him lives a river he can sit beside all morning, a mountain range receding into the dusk, a sky full of stars. The epilogue helped the book make perfect sense to me. The author was deeply moved and forever changed by his time at the homestead as I have been altered by my life in Southern Africa. We hold in our hearts a different view of the world and always have a happy place in our hearts that we can retreat to.
February 10, 2019
I give the author 4 stars moreso than the book. Truthfully, I'd give the author 5 stars. The book is unlike anything I've read - its more like meditations on solitude rather than any kind of journey. But written by someone who never quite gets comfortable with solitude. Truthfully, a better editor would have made significant improvements - but I won't at all discredit how great of a writer I believe Edwards to be after reading this book. Don't go in looking for any interesting hooks, storylines, or resolutions; you'll get none. But I appreciate that authentic, less marketable appeal. I was bummed to find out there weren't more books by Edwards to read - I would've bought them all on the spot while reading this. Even if this is all we get, it's completely worthwhile.
January 31, 2016
Really enjoyed this fantastic little book. Edwards' prose is the sort that makes the world more vivid once I've put the book down. Read from this book, notice the slick gleam of streetlamps reflecting off a rainy road, the dubious nature of wintering trees in slight wind. The introspection through this book frequently put me in a calm, reflective mood, not melancholy at all. The descriptions of nature are wonderful, and yes, he's funny, too. I'm not sure I could live in isolation like this, but as the book went on I grew to envy the strengthening relationship between Edwards and nature.
October 10, 2012
Okay, so I would probably give this 3.5 to 3.75 stars if those options were available. I really like the author's description of his solitude in the landscape. I particularly liked his realization at the end of the book about how to maintain solitude among people. I think for anyone that spends time in any kind of wilderness this is part of the reason why we continue to return for reminders of that solitude and peace. It is easy to forget amid the workaday concerns of everyday life.
September 22, 2016
Steve Edwards has this way of writing moment to moment, everyday things in such a beautiful way I don't do it proper justice writing abt it here. This book feels like a journal in the best way possible—intimacy and heart, dark and light and everylittlething inbetween. As I was reading and even when I'd put it down I'd be like...wow. I mean srsly. Excellent, sparkling work, Edwards. Art.
May 25, 2011
Writer wins a contest that takes him into the backcountry of Oregon for 9 months of solitude. Thoughtful, well-written and gets you into the mindset of being completely isolated, yet surrounded by natural beauty.
August 27, 2013
I'd give it around a 3.5/3.75 It's well written and descriptive but I found it at times a tad boring and there were a few times when events seemed too coincidental to be true. Overall it was good and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in a autobiographical setting in the wilderness.
February 1, 2022
Great book. The descriptions were so real, it was like visiting with him and his parents.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews