Details of her past, her present struggles and where she hopes to go. A warning, a chance to open our eyes before it is to late, if it isn't already. Our lack of care of the beautiful, natural world we have been given. It is also a book about our relationship or lack of one, with the wild that surrounds us. She meets with him daily, apart but together, she reads to him for fifteen minutes from The Little Prince. The fox is young, wild and at times she lets us into what she perceives as the foxes own thoughts, his actions, visuals.

She also goes into the history of various insights, but it is her relationship with a fox that is the focal point. Her descriptions of fauna and wildlife are breathtaking, she is a keen observer. Though like Walden before her, this cabin would become both the authors challenge and refuge.Ī wonderful memoir, a woman whose strength is admirable, making her own way through life and one that she started at a very young age. Living alone in a cabin, miles from nowhere, sounds enticing but not sure I could handle it for any length of time. Feel fortunate that where I live provides access to both. Well, I've spent plenty of time with both in the past 18 months. This uplifting, fable-like true story about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox not only reveals the power of friendship and our interconnectedness with the natural world, but is an original, imaginative, and beautiful work that introduces a stunning new voice. Though this is a story of survival, it is also a poignant and dramatic tale of living in the wilderness and coping with inevitable loss. But friends cannot always save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphise animals, but as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself - and he became her friend. He became a regular visitor, eventually sitting near her as she read to him from The Little Prince or Dr Seuss. One day, she realised that a wild fox that had been appearing at her house was coming by every day precisely at 4.15. Yet she never felt at home with people, and eventually built a house on her remote plot, and, except when teaching, spoke to no one.

She managed to put herself through college and then graduate school, eventually earning a PhD in biology. Drawn to the natural world, she worked as a ranger in national parks, at times living in her run-down car on abandoned construction sites, or camping on a piece of land in Montana she bought from a colleague. A solitary woman’s inspiring, moving, surprising, and often funny memoir about the transformative power of her unusual friendship with a wild fox.Ĭatherine Raven left home at 15, fleeing an abusive father and an indifferent mother.

Fox and i an uncommon friendship