Because Strayed showed us how to
leave our tough, destructive pasts 1,100 miles behind us.
At 26, Cheryl Strayed
was, by her own admission, a total mess. Her beloved mother had just died;
she'd broken up her young marriage; she was dating a junkie and was well on her
way to becoming one herself. But Strayed—who adopted that name because it fit her
behavior so well—righted herself by
setting out to hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert to
northernmost Oregon. How she did it, and what she learned about life, love, and
survival of the emotional and physical sort, is the subject of her moving
memoir,
Wild.
— Sara Nelson
