Wild Things
- Eris Press (World English)
"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.
"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