Ms. Butcher finds a way to make her story as much about the crisscross knot that is America today as it is about her and Joy, their short time together, and those men whom women love and too often fear.

Butcher manages to combine an incredibly personal story of her troubled romantic relationship with the portrait of a remarkable, one-of-a-kind Alaskan woman.

... a meditation on what it means to be a woman in this country and a master class in the power of brutally honest writing.

Though the two only spent a few days together, retracing Wiebe’s usual route in her pickup truck, and though Wiebe remains a somewhat idealized figure, the encounter clearly proved significant to Butcher, who brings the details to vivid life as she describes both the brutally beautiful landscape and the many people she and Joy met on their brief journey together. A moving account of the impact of connection.

... tender and gripping.

A sobering reflection on verbal and psychological abuse, Butcher’s book honors the healing power of female friendship and questions the nature of divinity beyond its constricting patriarchal manifestations.