Half Lives; Reconciling Work and Wildness

Brooke Williams

ISBN 10: 1555662889 / ISBN 13: 9781555662882

Published by Johnson Books, 1999

About this Item

Paperback is v clean, square along the edges, and tightly bound. Seller Inventory # 005464

Bibliographic Details

Title: Half Lives; Reconciling Work and Wildness

Publisher: Johnson Books

Publication Date: 1999

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis:

Used. Very Good conditions. May have soft reading marks and name of the previous owner.

Review:

Speaking as a family man, plumber, and direct descendent of Mormon pioneer Brigham Young, author Brooke Williams offers this pensive, humorous, and conflicted memoir about finding the balance between the call to duty and the call of the wild. Because he inherited a family-owned plumbing business, Williams has never had any problems making a living. It was living the life he wanted that seemed to be his greatest challenge. As a lover of wilderness adventure, he found it excruciating and downright depressing to keep leaving nature in order to live the life that was expected of him. Williams eventually realized that he had two "halflives" that make him whole--work and nature. And as the gap began to widen, Williams became more determined to reconcile the split.

Like his wife, Terry Tempest Williams, Brooke uses a journal-like narrative to combine vivid stories from the natural world, scenes from his marriage, memories of a mother's death, and reflections on human nature. "If we survive as a species, it will have nothing to do with what we've invented, developed, or manufactured, but everything to do with what we know in our deep core about being good mammals," Williams writes. That may be true, but as evidenced in this spiritually humble memoir, Williams also knows a lot about being a good writer and a good man to the core. --Gail Hudson