Summary
When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer, Helen had never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk, but in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolv... Full description
Summary: |
When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer, Helen had never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk, but in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life. |
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Item Description: |
Originally published: London : Jonathan Cape, 2014. |
Physical Description: |
300 pages ; 22 cm |
Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references. |
ISBN: |
0802123414 9780802123411 |
Author Notes: |
Helen Macdonald is an English writer, naturalist and academic at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of H is for Hawk, which won the Samuel Johnson prize. This book is a depiction of the grief and depression she fell into after the sudden death of her father in 2007 and how she bounced back through falconry. H is for Hawk, which has just won the £20,000 prize, describes the year Macdonald spent training a goshawk. She writes about subsuming her grief in the relationship with the bird and trying to be like her: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life. Her book is the first memoir to win the prize. She will be at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival in 2015. (Bowker Author Biography) |