TYPORAMA
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“[An] offbeat and charming memoir. .... Along with reverently describing her furry friend―who had a ‘face so innocent that you would have concluded that he never stalked a bluebird, let alone dismembered one’―Raven writes poetically about the flora (“my sun-worshipping tenants”) and fauna around her. Rich and meditative, Raven’s musings on nature and solitude are delightful company.”―Publishers Weekly
"When Catherine Raven left her abusive family at 15 years old, she quickly found solace in nature, first working as a park ranger, then getting her PhD in biology, and eventually building a small cottage in the remote woods of Montana where she settled into a mostly solitary life, with breaks to lead field classes and lectures. Then, one day, a fox showed up, and kept coming back. In this quiet, charming memoir, Raven recounts her journey to accepting this unusual companion, loath as she is to anthropomorphize him. And as she embraces the vulnerability of loving an animal she objectively knows can’t love her back, she warms up to the idea of letting other people in, too. Throughout, Raven writes about her environment with wonder and reverence but never formality ― it’s the easy affection of someone who’s long made family of the natural world."―BuzzFeed News
“Fox and I will make you feel deeply about our relationship with animals and nature. After you read this book, you will experience animals in a new and marvelous way.”―Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation
"The observations of high-desert nature―of wildlife, plants, landscapes, weather―in this book are some of the best you will ever read. The story of Catherine Raven and the fox's friendship charmed me and drew me in completely.”―Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains
"If Thoreau had read The Little Prince, he would have written Fox and I.”―Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi
“Intimate and poetic …. By paying ecstatic attention to grasses, insects, birds, and animals, Catherine Raven allows us to hear what nature is saying to us. Fox and I is essential reading for anyone concerned about the catastrophe human beings are inflicting on the environment from which they and all other creatures sprang."―Stephen Batchelor, author of The Art of Solitude
“This tale of wilderness, in the tradition of Thoreau and Steinbeck, is distinguished by a narrator who sees herself as one of the many creatures she lives among …. Catherine Raven has achieved something unique in the literature of nature-writing: genuine love for the wild within the rigor of scientific observation. The voice of this story-teller is startlingly original. I read it breathlessly.”―Andrei Codrescu
"Fox and I is a mesmerizing, beautifully written, and entirely unsentimental book about the connection among all things: the author and her fox friend, but also magpies, brown dogs, fawns, voles, and junipers. I learned as much about the meaning of friendship from this book as I have from any work of nonfiction that I’ve ever read."―Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club
ABOUT FOX & I:
An unforgettable memoir about the friendship
between a solitary woman and a wild fox.
When
Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny
cottage on an isolated plot of land
in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but
she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she
could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into
society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park. Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m.
She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends.
From the fox, she learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss―and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning.
It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural
world will change the way we view our surroundings―each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
PHOTO CREDIT: Henry Randel Chinn
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