SOLACE

Engaging memoirs of a search for life with meaning that has taken the author from young wife and mother to hippie peacenik and feminist counselor to writer and environmental activist.

Sojourner (Delicate, 2001), a contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, begins with her Catholic childhood in upstate New York. Unsettled by a brilliant, neurotic mother and weak, frightened father, she found her security in reading stories. The following decades brought early marriage and motherhood, a succession of lovers, life in an “urban, anarchist, agrarian commune,” and deep unrest and unhappiness. With rent, food, and childcare covered by various Great Society programs, she returned to college to study sociology, had her consciousness raised by a women’s-studies class, and within a few years was teaching feminist courses and getting even with all the wrongdoing men in her life. In middle age she discovered the work of Edward Abbey, particularly The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire, and moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, where she now lives alone (her children are grown and on their own) in a small cabin with electricity but no running water. In graceful, brief essays, Sojourner writes about finding her life’s true work and her spiritual home, about slowing down the pace of a too-fast life, connecting with a place, and making friendships with other people who care for that place. Keeping her memoirs from sliding into a smugness are revelations about the author’s devotion to casinos and slot machines, her addiction to her computer’s Scrabble game and e-mail, her troubles with drinking, and her disappointments with men. A portrait emerges of a strong, mature woman, thoughtful, witty, candid, and, if not exactly serene, then content with and even proud of the life she has made for herself and the work she is doing to preserve the beauty of the land around her.

Tonic for malcontents: goes down easily and leaves a lingering, pleasantly sweet and sour aftertaste.