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In 1905, a cigar-smoking, feminist writer of popular adventure novels for women encounters Bigfoot in Molly Gloss's best loved novel--"never has there been a more authentic, persuasive, or moving evocation of this elusive legend: a masterpiece" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Set among lava sinkholes and logging camps at the fringe of the Northwest frontier in the early 1900s, Wild Life is the story--both real and imagined--of the free-thinking, cigar-smoking, trouser-wearing Charlotte Bridger Drummond, who pens dime-store women's adventure stories. One day, when a little girl gets lost in the woods, Charlotte anxiously joins the search. When she becomes lost in the dark and tangled woods, she finds herself face to face with a mysterious band of mountain giants...or more commonly known as Sasquatch. With great assurance and skill, Molly Gloss blends "heady cerebral satisfactions, gorgeous prose, and page-turning adventure" (Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves), and puts a new spin on a classic piece of American folklore.… (more)
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The story is told largely in diary entries, though with interpolated articles and pieces of the Charlotte's published fiction. In the early sections, before the plot ramps up, it's her voice that carries us along -- plucky and stubborn but also aware of her own failings and occasional ridiculousness. To a writer, female or not, her notes on and soul-searching about finding time for writing and negotiating your own literary ambitions will resonate.
Once Charlotte leaves on her quest -- to help find a lost child, which isn't a spoiler since it's mentioned on the first page's 'cover letter' -- some of the themes, like modernity and mechanization, start to come to the forefront. The landscape and equipment of 1900s logging in the Northwest United States is very interesting, and unfamiliar to most of us. Charlotte's self-conscious modernity and discomfort with primordial wildness becomes easy to understand when we see the vast taming action being carried out against the land.
As for the latter half, I'm unwilling to affect others' reading of it by going into much detail, but I will say that it follows a structure -- the deliberately paced, background-building plot that culminates in a transformative, lyrical journey -- that I enjoyed in Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, and it's equally hard-hitting and effective here. The climactic and concluding sections of the book kept me pressed to the page, wiping away tears. I felt my skin prickle with the sense of visiting, or being visited by, another world lost in and for our own.
In the early 1900s, pulp fiction sold well enough, though women authors lacked the opportunities given to men. Narrator Charlotte Bridger Drummond supports her family by writing, struggles to balance her time, and never seems quite clear of who or what she is. Certainly she wants to be more, and when a child goes missing she jumps at the chance to share the experience of searching the trackless forest, a task that soon has her sleeping at the loggers’ camp and listening to tales of strange scary creatures who just might steal the helpless away in the night.
Cigar-smoking, bicycle-riding Ms Drummond is, of course, not helpless, and man might be scarier than beast. Ms Drummond observes, thinks, comments, and writes in her journal. Soon she’s amazingly real as readers are pulled into the dark and light, and the scents and sounds that surround her. Her past is shrouded in the mystery of a husband’s death. Her future is clouded by her children’s needs. But her present becomes a wonderful trek of bravery or fantasy, presented with newspaper cuttings, historical factoids made real, and a wealth of personal musings.
Does this novel blend history and fantasy? Is it a real-world tale where nature and monster combine? Or is it magical realism, believed but not entirely believable, born of the fictional author’s need to be more than the real world allows? Perhaps there are mysteries inside each of us, natural selves that are finer than myths would tell, and hidden strengths that are more than duty and love. Wild Life invites readers into the wild of nature and self, hides as much as it reveals, and offers a deeply enthralling, curious read.
Disclosure: A friend gave it to me and thought I might enjoy it. I did.
Now I can see why the blurbs mention "historical accuracy" and "literate". A number of the entries discuss the role of literature, women's literature, and "light" novels, we have primary sources for the attitudes and experiences depicted, and the style of writing closely mimics the dime-novels of that era. However, I am not enamored of that writing style and, not being an author or English major, wasn't looking to read old discussions of what makes good literature. Perhaps it will appeal to other LT readers.
Some typical quotes about literature:
"...since women are rarey mentioned in articles and other works of literary criticism that present a history of literature, these omissions are compensated for by including separate chapters dedicated to 'women who write' and preparing collections of stories and essays just for women (that in general are not read by men). One can presume the literary standards in such a 'one-eyed, blinking sort o' place' must suffer accordingly." (p.103)
"the one thing worth doing as a writer is to dwell upon things that arouse the imagination--upon swords and gabled cities and ancient forests, upon temples and palaces, giant apes in their revolt, and imprisoned princesses inn their unhappiness." (p.104)
I'll be donating my copy to my local library's sale as I can't think of any of my acquaintances I would want to inflict it on.
The characters are sharp and lovable. I'd find it really hard to dislike our wickedly shrewd and fearless protagonist, a (shockingly) single mother in early-20th-century rural Washington, along the Columbia River. Of course, she's kind a terrible mother (to five sons!), but that just somehow makes her even better.
The adventure begins when she--Charlotte--heads out into the wilderness and logging camps near present-day Battleground, Wash., to look for her housekeeper's missing granddaughter. That still stays wonderful, as she dons men's digs and gets all muddy and real.
Then things get crazy and fantastical. I can't decide that this melting into fantasy is brilliance or a letdown after such a romping first half. I think I still liked it, but it didn't have the resounding freshness of the reality segments of the novel. Charlotte's frame of mind in the end of the story is hard for me to identify with.
Overall, highly recommended, especially if you are interested in the Pacific Northwest, homestead-era history, logging history or, well, giant ape things.
If you liked the slipstream historical aspect try Sarah Canary by Karen
When we first meet Charlotte Bridger Drummond, through the pages of her
The diary remnants are neither complete nor chronological, and are intermingled with quotations, news clippings of the day, descriptions of the logging towns and turn-of-the-century logging practices, excerpts from Drummond’s published works, fragments of ideas for future pieces, musings on the relationships between men and women, personal history, anecdotes about mystical forest creatures reported by Indians and early settlers for decades, keen observations of the landscape, character sketches, folk tales, observations on racism, and a dark, simmering undercurrent of sensuality which she admits may be coming from her own self-enforced celibacy.
The brutal reality of bushwhacking through virgin Pacific Northwest forest in the search challenges Drummond’s perceptions of her own capabilities – perhaps not a bad thing – but a series of mishaps (the least skillfully handled of any of the book’s events) leaves her separated from the search party without even the most rudimentary tools or equipment for survival, and here’s where the story takes a turn into fantasy.
Or does it?
Drummond’s sojourn in the wilderness, as reported in the journal she keeps throughout the event, becomes less and less tethered to the world we know. Is it a true story? A fever dream? The fantasy of a mind and body stressed beyond endurance? A series of scenes for a possible future novel? Readers will have to make their own decisions about this, just as they will have to imagine Drummond’s subsequent life.
Gloss has written both science fiction and historical westerns in the past, and bends the genres here into something that is not quite either one, flavored with her unique understanding of the region and a sturdy feminist viewpoint. The journey is not always comfortable, but true exploration seldom is.