Novelist Williams (Blue Crystal, 1993, etc.) presents twined,
elemental stories on the havoc of a heart operation and the random,
filigreed thoughts of an amateur naturalist exploring his home
patch. His family has a history of bum tickers, so it didn't come
as a surprise to Williams when he learned he had Barlow's Syndrome,
a faulty valve. But that was 15 years ago. In the meantime he
married, had two children, wrote a few books, bought a house in
deeply rural north-central Georgia on a forested ridge above
tumbling Wildcat Creek, and steadily approached his dreaded 43rd
birthday, an age at which the heart-poor in his family uniformly
bowed out. Sure enough, that year he gets news he will need
surgery; his valve is shot. He starts to be more attentive, in
particular to the land and creatures around his home. His
observations are presented as little ruminative comfortings and
explorations of the wildflowers, the pink light of stormy weather,
the winding sand dunes in the flow of the creek, scrappy blue jays
and mesmerizing raptors, earthworms and spiders and honeysuckle.
They slowly accrete for him into something more than sense of place
and less than the music of the spheres, something deep and mortally
inclusive, wherein he endeavors, humbly for the most part, to find
a niche. Braided to this curious naturalist is the heart patient,
scared and angry, who details the visits to the doctor, the
surgery, and the recovery, a process in which he is flayed
emotionally and cracked open physically, and vice versa. Depression
settles in and moves on only after a prolonged pharmaceutical
tithing. Gradually, out of the pain and shadow emerge his family
and homestead, and they never looked so good. Williams's story has
a keen immediacy to it, an unmulled flavor. It is all very real and
unenviable and touched with the small gestures - his father's
protective shoulder to cry upon, a daughter's delight in his return
- that encourage survival. (Kirkus Reviews)
I am a country man, raised in the fields and woods of north-central
Georgia. I do not care for cities, and so I live in the forest on a
ridge over Wildcat Creek, a bold stream that flows, half a mile
away, into the Oconee River....
Our house is halfway down the ridge, just before it plummets
sharply to the creek. I have found archaic chert scrapers on our
property, more recent potsherds with intricate decorations. I say
that we own these seven acres, but we're really just passing
through.
With his opening lines Philip Lee Williams defines the territory
of this intricate and lyrical memoir: life with his young family on
the ridge, his coming of age, and the legacy of his southern
family. That legacy, which includes a love of literature, a passion
for music, and an insatiable curiosity about the natural world,
also includes a defective heart valve.
Crossing Wildcat Ridge combines the drama of Williams's
open-heart surgery with contemplative essays on the natural world.
The gentle counterpoint between the two elements illuminates both
in remarkable and profound ways. Confronting his mortality, the
author struggles to determine his place in the world. His sober
consideration of things left undone is juxtaposed with the
contemplation of a mound of fire ants: "There is no uncertainty in
that world; each knows his job, doesn't know why, can't ask. None
knows he will die". As the author slips into depression during his
post-operative recovery, he studies the flora and fauna of the
ridge, its lights and shadows, the dunes beneath the waters of the
creek. With poetic imagery, he shares not only his crystalline
observations of nature but also their healing effects -- how he
learns to receivethe gift of a mockingbird's song, how the tracks
of elusive woodland creatures bolster his faith in the existence of
things we cannot see, how sensory memories reconnect him to the boy
he was and the man he hopes to be.
All thinking, feeling adults search for the right path to
self-discovery. Philip Lee Williams's luminous account of his
journey is one satisfying and effective road map.
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