DEAR PARK RANGER

Muse, a park ranger, explores manhood, wanderlust, and the power of change in this debut memoir.

“Throughout my life, no matter where I’ve lived,” writes the author, “manhood has been a kind of topographic map”; social expectations have told him which paths he should take. Shortly after marrying his wife, the two worked on a household plumbing project—“Man’s work,” he joked at the time, knowing full well that his independent, self-sufficient wife “had been doing it for years.” Raised in a fatherless home in Indiana, Muse would spend much of his youth trying to find meaning in the great outdoors and models in the hyper-masculine heroes of 1970s pop culture. “Most of my memories,” he writes, are intertwined with the land, as he “loved maps before books.” Pursuing a career as a park ranger alongside his wife, Ranger Paula, the author moved from park to park throughout the United States, from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the low-lying marshlands of Charleston, South Carolina. Much of the book focuses on how the author’s wanderlust connects to his childhood trauma and (mis)conceptions of manhood. He takes readers to Kentucky to explore his family’s ancestry and examines the connections between notions of masculinity and neo-Confederate white supremacy that still lingers in the Deep South. Other chapters blend personal anecdotes with appreciations of the beauty of America’s national parks. One chapter (“Subject: Advice for Tree Huggers”) offers guidance to would-be environmental activists, urging them to embrace their passion with pragmatic, sustainable strategies (“Follow your heart and bust your ass, though don’t expect fairness”). With postgraduate degrees in both science and creative writing, Muse blends his expertise in environmental science with a literary approach, offering poignant social commentary and striking descriptions of natural beauty. A subtheme that runs throughout the book is the wisdom of his wife, Ranger Paula, who serves as a guiding star in the author’s own journey to self-discovery.

An evocative consideration of the dualities of beauty and pain found both in nature and ourselves.