What a book! This book won the Samuel Johnson Prize, UK's prize for best non-fiction. It is a compelling story of a woman's grief, her attachment to her hawk and the desire to "fall out" of the human race for a while. Who among us has not had that feeling at least once? In addition to her compelling story of raising and training Mabel the goshawk, MacDonald relates her story to a parallel, but dis-similar story of TH White's wrestling with his life. Really great trans-generational comparisons in all this.
There is also some very good prose. Some of it is plain old storytelling and others of it captures the feeling of loneliness and abandonment. I suppose the act of forced maturity also plays a part in all of this.
This is a 5 star read. Do not miss it!
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