0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets

Buy Now

Crossing Wildcat Ridge - A Memoir of Nature and Healing (Hardcover) Loot Price: R670
Discovery Miles 6 700
You Save: R139 (17%)
Crossing Wildcat Ridge - A Memoir of Nature and Healing (Hardcover): Philip Lee Williams

Crossing Wildcat Ridge - A Memoir of Nature and Healing (Hardcover)

Philip Lee Williams

 (sign in to rate)
List price R809 Loot Price R670 Discovery Miles 6 700 | Repayment Terms: R63 pm x 12* You Save R139 (17%)

Bookmark and Share

Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days

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.

General

Imprint: University of Georgia Press
Country of origin: United States
Release date: March 1999
First published: March 1999
Authors: Philip Lee Williams
Dimensions: 216 x 139 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2090-8
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
Books > Medicine > Nursing & ancillary services > Rehabilitation
Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > General
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > From 1900
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Novels, other prose & writers > General
Books > Biography > General
LSN: 0-8203-2090-0
Barcode: 9780820320908

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

Partners