Fox and I
An Uncommon Friendship
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4.2 • 46 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * 2022 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner * Shortlisted for the John Burroughs Medal * Finalist for the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize * Shortlisted for a Reading the West Book Award
Instant New York Times Bestseller * A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year * 2021 Summer Reading Pick by Buzzfeed * New York Times Book Review * Kirkus * Time * Good Morning America * People * Washington Post
“The book everyone will be talking about. . . . Full of tenderness and understanding.”—New York Times
An “extraordinary” (Oprah Daily) memoir about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox.
When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park.
Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends.
From the fox, Catherine learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.
Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss—and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings—each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biologist Raven (Forestry) reflects on her relationship with a red fox in her offbeat and charming memoir. After fleeing the abusive household she grew up in, Raven started college at age 16 and worked as a park ranger in Washington's Mount Rainier National Park before earning her doctorate in biology in 1999. Upon graduating, she bought herself a remote parcel of land in Montana and landed a gig teaching classes for the University of Montana Western in Yellowstone National Park. Around this time, a red fox began appearing near her cottage at the same time every afternoon. And so, she writes, "the necessity of entertaining a visitor at 4:15 p.m. each afternoon left me no choice but to read." For "fifteen consecutive days," she read Antoine Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince to the fox, and the two formed an unusual bond, spending days together hiking through the forest and carrying on imagined conversations. Along with reverently describing her furry friend—who had a "face so innocent that you would have concluded that he never stalked a bluebird, let alone dismembered one"—Raven writes poetically about the flora ("my sun-worshipping tenants") and fauna around her. Rich and meditative, Raven's musings on nature and solitude are delightful company.
