'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed review..

The subtitle of this autobiographical account of one woman’s lone trek following the Pacific Crest Trail in California and Oregon is “A Journey from Lost to Found.” A habitual scoffer at sentimentality and neatly packaged memoirs which promise to both warm and rend your heart, it nearly put me off reading this book. I’m heartily glad it didn’t.

Cheryl Strayed was twenty two when her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and died, aged forty five. Her family rapidly drifted apart, her marriage ended and Strayed fell into a spiral of casual sex and heroin. A chance purchase of a hiking guide book proved inspirational – and with no experience of long-distance hiking, Strayed found herself setting out on an eleven hundred mile walk across the west coast of the USA, alone. Facing bears, landslides, rattlesnakes, empty water tanks in the Mojave Desert and bolting llamas, plus just the sheer intensity of walking miles each day across mountain ranges and through deserts, in snow, rain and blistering heat, Strayed’s account is instantly absorbing.

The emotional honesty and exact detailing of both Strayed’s journey and the events which led her to take such a courageous and drastic step to reclaim her life and her sense of self are gripping. No word is superfluous or sentimental; the fine detail in everything from how her body changes under the stress and rigours of trail life to holding her mother for the last time create an almost tactile empathy in reading. It’s very rare for a book to make me cry, yet I found myself properly weeping over some of the passages here – all exquisitely written with such precise descriptions of intangible and yet almost universal human experiences of loss, emptiness, longing and existence, they strike a whole guitar’s worth of chords. They stick in the mind in such a way that it shapes your own consideration of those feelings, and it’s a rare writer which achieves this.

It’s by no means a sad book, however. There is humour, both wry and raucous, and there is, naturally for a tale concerned with both physical and metaphorical journeys, lightness and joy and a happy ending. Another running theme is that of the kindness of strangers, and Strayed is indeed lucky with the helpful, generous souls she meets along the way. There is a definite subtle feminist subtext, questioning our attitudes to a woman who travels alone, and how she is perceived alternatively as humorous, courageous, foolish, crazy or admirable.

I would thoroughly recommend this book, and also Strayed’s collected writing taken from her vastly popular internet agony aunt column, “Tiny Beautiful Things.” For anyone who favours emotional honesty and personal discovery, in fiction and in life, this book is a fine account which marries both with exceptional writing. It also may inspire you to take a journey of your own.

April Cursons (@charitychiccat)