Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship
Book by Catherine Raven
DETAILS
Publisher : Spiegel & Grau (July 6, 2021) Language : English Hardcover : 304 pages ISBN-10 : 1954118007 ISBN-13 : 978-1954118003 Item Weight : 1.15 pounds Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.6 x 9.3 inches Best Sellers Rank: #23,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #62 in Adventure Travel (Books) #751 in Parenting & Relationships (Books) #970 in Science & Math (Books) , INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Winner of The PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner * Shortlisted for the John Burroughs Medal * Finalist for the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize * Shortlisted for a Reading the West Book Award A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year * 2021 Summer Reading Pick by BUZZFEED * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * KIRKUS * TIME MAGAZINE * GOOD MORNING AMERICA * PEOPLE MAGAZINE * THE WASHINGTON POST "The book everyone will be talking about … full of tenderness and understanding. — The New York Times An " extraordinary " ( Oprah Daily ) memoir about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox. When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park. Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince . Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends. From the fox, Catherine learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world . Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss —and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings—each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox. Read more
REVIEW
This is a clever memoir, and I use clever to describe both the story’s unique focus, but also as a pejorative as it can be off putting, and is the reason I didn’t give this five stars. The author’s (the aptly named Raven) relationship with a runt fox who occupies her rural property in Montana s the central story here, but the larger theme is her relationship with nature overall. This includes other people as well as plants, animals, rocks, earth, clouds, fire… but what struck me is how she emphaisized our role in the natural world and how easy we can and have moved away from it. This story is interspersed with just enough of her life story, included in a manner which flows quite well rather than feels forced. I bought this book in July after hearing the author on the Meateater podcast and finding her and the book interesting. I started to read it in August and made it less than thirty pages in before I became disinterested. This was due to the cleverness I alluded to earlier; I often find lyrical or deep wrting difficult to read and enjoy, it can seem like a chore. Sometimes that is good, often for me its bad, depending what is going on in my life. A type of book I can more easily enjoy is one more straight-forward, with facts and action. I was recently able to devote the “brain-space” I require to read this type of book, so I picked it up again and finished it in about three days and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ll likely be thinking about the themes within that resonated with me, such as the nature of friendship, individualism, and man’s role in the natural world, over the next few weeks. One disagreement with a comment the author made regarding out relationships with dogs, where she insinuated the protection and loyalty we get from dogs is bought; loyalty can never be bought. Loyalty requires a willingness and is based on an emotion. If we are anthromorphising (a topic in the book by the way) and I can use that word, a dogs true “loyalty” is NEVER bought, whether by training or lessons, or bribery from treats. A dog is not going to respond in a manner with how we define that word without true feeling for the human. Much like a human.
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