In this follow-up to her bestselling memoir The Salt Path, Winn describes the profound affect of that book's surprise success and where life has taken her and her ill husband, Moth, in the years since.
Written in the same lushly descriptive, emotive vein, this sequel conveys how their experience—and her book about it—changed their lives. But where The Salt Path stayed on a relatively narrow but propulsive narrative track, The Wild Silence roams further afield. It’s a more expansive memoir, ranging from backstory to update, with meditations on death, sustainable farming, trust, the meaning of home and the central importance of deep engagement with the great outdoors ... As always, Ms. Winn exquisitely captures the raw intensity of untamed environments ... a full-throated paean to the fundamental importance of nature in all its glory, fury and impermanence ... as Ms. Winn makes clear in this heartfelt and heartening book, such bracing challenges put them in touch with the 'roaring, wild silence' that sustains them.
Forced to confront mortality wherever she turns, her prose is extraordinary: wise, unflinching, exquisite ... but the narrative often lacks a compass. Still, there is a luminous conviction to the prose, and their odyssey through Iceland is profound ... Ultimately, she draws hope, and shares it—allowing us to see how the planet’s 'fixed impermanence' can make bearable our own.
Immediately upon finishing Raynor Winn's 2019 memoir, The Salt Path, I went to the computer and called up Google. 'What happened to Moth?' ... Winn's gorgeous new memoir, The Wild Silence, answers that question and does a whole lot more, exploring love, the importance of nature and the meaning of home ... The Wild Silence is less adventure narrative and more interior than her first book, but it is just as moving and beautifully written. Once again, Winn's connection to nature and to Moth are at its heart ... The Wild Silence is deeply reflective; Winn is a firm believer that physical activity in the out-of-doors is crucial for any human to thrive ... Read this lovely book. Go to Google and check on Moth. And then go outside and take a walk.
