Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills - Hardcover

Norton, Lisa Dale

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312145918 ISBN 13: 9780312145910

Publisher: Picador USA, 1996

Synopsis

A memoir of the author's life ranges from her childhood in Nebraska to her parent's separation, and a life of drinking and living on the streets

About this title

Review

First-time author Norton strikes a fine balance between memoir and nature essay in writing of her homecoming to the wellspring of her childhood memories, the Cedar River of Nebraska. She had come home to nurse the grief of having been raped and of trying to drown the memory of that horrible event in alcohol. "For long years I felt afloat without mooring, without anchor," she writes, until she finally returned to that lean and austere place of childhood pleasures. Her account of finding a psychic center among family and friends is affecting without being sentimental, and Norton writes warmly of the plants and animals that inhabit this place--cranes, curlews, sand roses, and other denizens of the High Plains--and of the people who work the land.

From Kirkus Reviews

Part memoir, part nature essay, a roundabout search for a place of one's own--in this case, on the high plains of Nebraska. In this debut book, Norton writes of returning home from years of wandering to ``an aging reservoir on the Cedar River, part marsh, part bass lake, wellspring of my childhood memories.'' Her travels from coast to coast, she writes, had given her a close-up look at the blue highways and backroads of America, an education in the art of rootlessness. They also delivered an apprenticeship ``in the field of emotion, learning the nuances of sadness, depression, joy, and loss. I was a tabula rasa, allowing the world to etch its patterns into me.'' Sadness outweighed joy, and her apprenticeship led to a sickness of the soul, especially after she was raped and then, for years, tried to bury the horrible memory in drink. ``For long years I felt afloat without mooring, without anchor,'' she writes, until she finally returned to that place of childhood pleasures, a lean place ``not quite desert, yet no oasis either.'' Her account of finding a restorative haven on familiar ground, among kin and friends, moves her slender book from the nature shelf to that devoted to recovery, and it is a very worthy addition to that library. As nature essay, though, Norton's book also succeeds; she writes affectingly of the plants and animals that inhabit the place--cedars, cranes, curlews, cottonwoods, sand roses, and other manifestations of ``simple beauty''--and of the cowboys and farmers who work the land. These are all matters that can be written of well only after long study and close observation, and it is clear that Norton has done her homework and paid attention. This book merits a place alongside the work of Terry Tempest Williams (who encouraged her) and Annie Dillard. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0312145918
• ISBN 13: 9780312145910
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 219