Terry Williams mother is dying of cancer...and she milks this for about as far as it will go.

Don't get me wrong....dying of cancer is a horrible way to go, and I'm sorry that anyone has to go through this....BUT....when you try to somehow link this with watching birds, and Mormonism with the glue of nonsensical verbose sentences you get a book that is better thrown into the fire you keep you warm on those cold winter nights.

I HATED this book and her obvious attempts at being deep.

I found that this book lingered in my thoughts long after I'd finished it. I think that Williams did a fine job paralleling the environment with her own sense of ebbing loss. I am certainly no ecologist, in fact a speech language pathologist, so I can't comment on the factualness of the ecology references. But I felt nature while reading it. Never been to Utah--can't comment on the accuracy of descriptions. But I could sure see it in my mind. I am a woman so the anti-male climate I may not be best to judge. I read it as a dialogue of women, a sisterhood or lack there of at times. Having lost a loved one to breast cancer, I can comment on the sense of impending loss and the need to search for something you that you can stop and "save". I enjoyed this book for what it was to me.

A rare combination of personal journal and field notes, this story compasses the death of a marsh and the death of a mother, the tenacity of struggling species and the re-birth of a daughter. It moved me to tears -- a decidedly rare experience for me with non-fiction -- and surprised me with those tears at odd times: the beauty of a bird and a place and a moment, or the stoic wisdom of the women who battle with and lose to cancer. In addition to possessing a questioning spirit, and a lover's eye for birds in the wild places she roams, Williams is a downwinder. She and her family are among the officially "inconsequential" population who were conveniently ignored during America's atmospheric nuclear testing in the 50s. The several women (and a few men) in her family who have died from cancers probably linked to those tests have moved her from interest to activism. This book is a record of her baptism in nuclear fire as well as her search for wings. REFUGE is among the armful of books I would grab if my house were on fire. I own two copies so I can lend one without fear. It is absolutely first rate.

The first time I went to Utah, I read Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" and loved it. This time, at a bookstore in Moab, I picked up Williams' "Red" for a contemporary view of the ecological issues around this gorgeous desert landscape, which is unlike any place I have been. Although I liked "Red," people told me "Refuge" was even better.

This is a very special book. I'm no birdwatcher, but it made me want to be. I'm no scientist, but I wished I were. I'm no Mormon, but it gave me respect for a religion I have never been able to fathom. Terry Tempest Williams has profound insights into the natural world. Her observations of the Great Salt Lake and the many migratory birds that visit it are as moving as her account of the death by cancer of her mother and grandmothers. Not surprisingly, they taught Williams awe of birds and sunsets and their own bodies. All of them are brave and spiritual women, and we would be wise to learn from them.

I think what I most admire about Williams as a writer is her emotional courage. Time and time again, she strikes out where more conventional writers would hesitate. She finds redeeming passages from the Book of Mormon. She follows her mother through her long and circuitous spiritual journey with cancer. She follows her grandmother as she moves into Eastern thought and modern physics. She dips respectfully into ancient Indian and Mexican culture. She walks in the desert at some peril to her well-being. She speaks of the intimacy of her marriage and about her decision not to bear children.

Yet his is not a book "about" the desert or cancer or birds or Mormonism, but about life and how it can be richly observed, experienced. shared and redeemed. It's one brave woman's answer to "Desert Solitaire."

Terry Tempest Williams is a national treasure. Her unvarnished verse carries one deep into the mystery of the Earth and sends us helplessly into the depths of our own hearts. The landscape of wildness breaths a spectacular wisdom under the watchful eyes of this keen observer of wind, rock, desert, sky, sage, along with the birds who soar and dance and play in a benediction to non-sentient life.

When I need to recapture my own mortality along with my own humility, I always return to the verse of this elder of silence and truth. Williams stands alone in the power to convey both outer and inner wildness. Her verse is poetic and healing. One does not read these words but are instead initiated into the heart beat of wild nature. Savor its beauty as you might a calming sunset or a wind swept sea shore calling you ever deeper into your own soul.

Read everything she writes and find peace deep within.