Instant New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
* 2022 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner * Shortlisted for
the John Burroughs Medal * Finalist for the Stubbendieck Great Plains
Distinguished Book Prize * Shortlisted for a Reading the
West Book Award
A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year * 2021 Summer
Reading Pick by BUZZFEED * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * KIRKUS * TIME
MAGAZINE * GOOD MORNING AMERICA * PEOPLE MAGAZINE * THE WASHINGTON
POST
"The book everyone will be talking about ... full of tenderness and
understanding."--The New York Times
An "extraordinary" (Oprah Daily) memoir about the friendship between a
solitary woman and a wild fox.
Includes reading group guide and an interview with the author.
When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a
tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as
emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as
a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves
and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that
would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely
and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park.
Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her
property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular
visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her
camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to
him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not
to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his
personality revealed itself and they became friends.
From the fox, Catherine learned the single most important thing about
loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural
world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained
forces of nature.
Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and
coping with inevitable loss--and of how that loss can be transformed
into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well
as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world
will change the way we view our surroundings--each tree, weed, flower,
stone, or fox.
