A popular essayist in Haines, Ala., follows her prior excursion (If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, 2005) with a report on, among other relevant matters, what it’s like to be hit by a truck.
In fact, Anchorage Daily News columnist Lende was “run over by a truck…flown out of town, put back together, hospitalized, and finally placed in a nursing home a thousand miles away from home until I was strong enough to travel.” After such a life-threatening experience, the author did what came natural to her—she wrote about it. Now recovered and back to consider some timeless values, she proves a skilled observer of nature in the wild and nature in human form. She is the coach of the local track team, wife and mother of five and a winsome reporter on people old and young, including dear friends, stalwart citizens and brave neighbors. Lende provides pointed thoughts on mortality, occasioned only partly by the death of a parent (the book’s title was her mother’s valedictory); touches of Tlingit native philosophy; and reflections on the blessing of the fleet and the erection of a modern totem pole in Haines. The author loves her Alaskan home, where she can see soaring eagles, bears and other natural wonders, and her cozy whimsy is refreshing, as when she discusses her fondness for her chickens. “I know chickens are not the most intelligent of creatures,” she writes, “but my hens have been raised to believe the world is good and that they are loved.”
Amiable in Alaska and slightly left of center, projecting the warmth of a well-made campfire.