Off the Beaten Path: Stories of Place - Softcover

Nature Conservancy

3.41

54 ratings by Goodreads

9780865475380: Off the Beaten Path: Stories of Place

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865475385 ISBN 13: 9780865475380

Publisher: North Point Pr, 1999

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A collection of short fiction features the contributions of Jill McCorkle, Eric Lustbader, Rick Bass, Rita Mae Brown, Barry Lopez, and E. Annie Proulx

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About the Author:

Joseph Barbato is a director of development communications and editorial projects at The Nature Conservancy. Lisa Weinerman Horak works in the Latin American and Caribbean divisions of the Conservancy.

From Kirkus Reviews:

In a follow-up to their 1995 collection, Heart of the Land, Nature Conservancy staffers Barbato and Weinerman Horak here assemble 13 original stories by American writers (some of whom were included in the previous anthology) who mix their own magic with that of the Conservancy lands they were invited to visit. After a foreword by Barbara Kingsolver, who describes her affinity for wild places by sharing her feelings at having a bobcat unexpectedly approach her writing-desk window, the tales begin with Howard Norman's ``The Chauffeur,'' a quietly compelling view of relationships in which a San Francisco driver's romance with a biologist working at an elk refuge near Point Reyes National Seashore is disrupted by the death of the woman who brought them togetheran elderly Japanese woman who traveled weekly from the city to Point Reyes in the hope of glimpsing a rare white pelican. ``The Half-skinned Steer,'' E. Annie Proulx recounts a lonely old man's return after decades to the Wyoming ranch where he was born, only to face death in a snowstorm. And in ``Hush,'' Eric Lustbader gives us a Florida woman transformed by an encounter with a brown bear in the Alaskan wilderness; as a result, she finally comes to terms with her best friend's suicide during their adolescence, and also opens herself to the sexuality she'd for so long denied. A lighter look at the significance of place is provided by Rita Mae Brown in ``Early Lessons,'' depicting two wrangling sisters on a futile Chesapeake Bay fishing trip, as observed by one's six-year-old daughter. These and similar offerings, along with a few more straightforward ``save the wilderness'' tales, comprise a diverse, rewarding assortmentand an impressive testament to the important role played by nature in inspiring writers to create stories that touch us all. -- Copyright �1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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