What emotional vocabulary can express both the joy and the doubts she experienced devoting copious time and love to a wild creature? This fanciful, literate, unsentimental and yet deeply felt memoir is her answer.

Catherine Raven’s story about her relationship with a wild red fox, is likely to find a receptive audience. But readers might also ask, given the well-trodden ground on this topic, whether there’s much new to say.

... an unnerving, contemplative look at solitude and the connections we make with the outside world. For the reader, there’s a palpable sense of dread that keeps the pages moving: Fox won’t live forever. Yet Raven, who knows that well, writes with a refreshingly unsentimental hand. Her main concern isn’t the expiration date of their time together, but how she categorizes and comes to terms with the animal’s presence in her life.

All these scenes work in the narrative to build a sense camaraderie between Raven and Fox; collectively, they stand as a testament for the meaning and beauty in the small and seemingly insignificant moments in life.

This is something altogether different from the latest 'went into the wild to find myself' offering. Raven’s is a memoir unspooled in nature, a first-person account from an unusually observant point of view.

...fascinating.

This quietly poetic memoir describes the somewhat meandering paths that Raven and Fox, a yearling male and the runt of the litter, traversed to achieve their unusual partnership.

... smart and tender.

[A] multi-layered exploration of a world in which humans honor rather than dominate nature.

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..

The touching memoir of a biologist who befriended a fox in the wilderness.