Wild Things: A Geography of Grief

"These trees, these plants I have written to you about have taught me all I needed to know about your death."

B loves M, her favourite sister. M is taken from her in the middle of life, too young, too soon, under the invisibility cloak of the pandemic. Since then, daily, B strides out into her vast local wild place, Griffith Park, with her dog, and walks uphill and down towards understanding, towards peace, towards reconciliation. She talks to her dead sister, sports with her in the shape-shifting form of the wild animals and plants of the park -- rabbits, coyotes, snakes, owls, oleander, dodder, nettle, walnut. She leaves gifts for her, shells and shaped stones, and finds these gifts reciprocated. She finds herself open to the mystery of change now, open to letting go of old habits, tired truths, unachievable expectations, the fictions of family. She revisits her life as an anxious and responsible daughter, sister, wife, mother, artist, and lingers, looks askance, laughs. And walks on, taking us somewhere we all need to go, up to a point where much can be left behind, where a new wisdom awaits us all. Then she goes home and writes it all up in letters to her sister, 59 of them, one for each year of her life. And those letters make up Wild Things. And Wild Things is as moving and memorable a book as you are likely to encounter this year.
 

"Stories of Native American culture — walnuts signify clarity and purpose, while dragonflies are the “souls of the dead, which fits neatly with my mood today: lonely for you” — are deftly interwoven into the 59 letters, one for each year of her sister’s life. Even though each letter is rich enough alone, I found myself reading it straight through, immersed in its narrative force and curious where she would end up. This [is a] beautifully written, poetic and wise book.'

Rosie Boycott, Financial Times

"The sadness and wisdom of this memoir would make it ideal to read at leisure, one letter a night over a period of two months. Yet for all the suffering within, this is not a depressing book. It is too engaged with the world for that, too determined to express the truth, in tones that can be restrained and outraged at once in the contradictions of grief. 'I know it is true,' Wansbrough writes to M, of her death. 'But, still, I don’t believe it has happened.'" 

John Self, The Times

"Written in the form of 59 letters to the author’s sister—one for each year of her life—and grounded in daily walks through Californian landscapes, this intimate 'geography of grief' is a testament to the power of ritual, the resonance of nature, and the complexities of inherited bonds. Wansbrough was born into 'a family where the pieces never quite fit,' and a country (England) that always felt slightly foreign; her sister, addressed only as M,' was the 'only one who ever made sense to me.' When M died of cancer, Wansbrough found solace in wandering each day through the hills of her adopted home of Los Angeles, and through closely observing the flora and fauna, which took on a new presence in her sister’s absence. Each letter centers on something Wansbrough spotted on her walk—a prickly pear cactus or an acorn woodpecker— from which she draws lyrical insights on the general nature of transformative loss, and the specific intricacies of her own family, now cleaved of a crucial branch. Resplendent with hard-won hope and unvanquished love, this book is both a meditation and an invitation. How do we make it through the savage wilderness of grief? One step at a time."

Charley Burlock, Oprah Daily

"Now that the romance and terror of grief are so current and familiar - and we seem so knowledgeable about it - Wansbrough's book seems all the more remarkable.That grief and a curiosity about, and passion for, the natural world should be inextricable Wild Things makes abundantly clear. Wansbrough's voice is lucid, and straightforward and strangely visionary, as she recounts simply the walks she took after her sister's death. Wild Things is not merely consoling, but a kind of inspiration."

Adam Phillips, author of On Giving Up and Missing Out

'The wondrous Wild Things gripped me like a series of tender letters from a dearest friend. With grace and fierce resolve, Wansborough tends her grief over her beloved sister's death by immersing herself in the natural world where she takes her daily walks, and her exquisite book helps to lift a reader's spirits, reminding us that our loved ones walk alongside us as closely as sorrow does. It's unforgettable and life-changing.' 

Naomi Shihab Nye, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award

'Wild Things is a strange, beautiful, sorrowful book, which walks its way both into and partway through grief. It's a love-song to sisterhood, and a hymn to the curious forms of consolation and companionship that come from opening eyes and heart to the nearby wild world.'

Robert MacFarlane, author of The Old Ways and The Wild Places

"A grief journal in letters, filled with the particular balm of the natural world.

Wansbrough, transplanted from England to California, writes 59 letters to a beloved older sister who died of cancer during the pandemic, one for each year of her sister’s life, each themed around a plant or animal she encounters on walks through Griffith Park in Los Angeles: Sacred Datura to Great Blue Heron. “I have written letters, I have written poems, I have written prose, I have painted pictures, I have painted walls, I have saved time and I have wasted time. I have watched it rush past and I have seen it inch along, but through all of it, I have walked. I have walked towards my grief, I have walked away from it, I have walked over and under it and, sometimes, I have even walked through it.” ...

Lyrical, openhearted expression and naturalist insights make this a fine addition to the literature of magical thinking."

Kirkus Reviews [starred review]