The Black Swan: Memory, Midlife, and Migration

Batterson, Anne

ISBN 10: 0743215532 / ISBN 13: 9780743215534

Published by Scribner, 2001

About this Item

Lisa Drew/Scribner hardcover in dust jacket, 2001, 1st edition/1st printing, unread and carefully stored, SIGNED on title page by Anne Batterson (no inscription) otherwise unmarked and defect free; (Fine/Fine). We will add a custom fitted mylar cover, bubble-wrap the book and ship it in a BOX with delivery confirmation/tracking. Seller Inventory # 10625B

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Black Swan: Memory, Midlife, and ...

Publisher: Scribner

Publication Date: 2001

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

In an inspirational memoir, a fifty-six-year-old woman who has led an adventure-filled existence reflects on the coming of middle age, her personal relationships, and the depression that accompanied her realization of her advancing years and describes her decision to head across the country to follow the paths of bird migration across the United States. 15,000 first printing.

Review:

It's hard to believe this thoughtful memoir is Anne Batterson's first book, so elegantly does she weave a chronicle of her five-week trip across America to observe migratory birds with recollections of the key people and moments in her life. Batterson was 56 when she took off from Connecticut on the journey she knew was quixotic, designed to stem her rising panic at her beloved second husband's talk of leaving his post as an Episcopalian minister. "Retirement, he would try out over the dinner table," she writes. "More time. Enough time... What I heard was: Hurry. Hurry. There's no time." Though she had behind her decades of adventure as a skydiver, pilot, and mountain trekker, Batterson still felt a keen need for risk-taking and solitude. With the blessings of her understanding spouse, David, she packed up her VW bus camper and took off. The present-tense narrative of her travels has a marvelous immediacy, from the lyrical (yet often slyly funny) descriptions of birdwatching, to emotional accounts of visits, to friends suffering their own midlife crises. Her past comes vibrantly to life in bravura passages capturing the thrill of skydiving (especially a terrifying jump in the middle of a lightning storm) and the pain of her failed first marriage to a flight instructor "who taught me how to loop the loop. Boy did he ever." She comes home to David and the knowledge that her wanderlust makes her who she is. The book closes with Batterson admitting, "I've always wanted to go above the Arctic Circle," as David laughs and she kisses the palm of his hand, murmuring, "God, I'm lucky." Readers will feel just as lucky to have shared the experiences related here with such tenderness and hard-won wisdom. --Wendy Smith