A Woman in the Wild: A Novel Tad Crawford 9781648211126

A Woman in the Wild is a revealing and memorable portrait of a woman boldly facing her demons in pursuit of a meaningful life.

A psychologist in crisis leaves her established practice in the city for an open-ended retreat in the mountains at the Institute for Healing and Transformation. Feeling lost, betrayed, and stricken by guilt not to have saved her daughter from sexual abuse, she hopes to find a new path to ease her pain and uncertainties.

Soon after her arrival, a "wild" man who roamed the forest with a bear is brought to the institute. When the man is given to her care, she performs a suspenseful balancing as she seeks to heal him as well as herself.

Hiking and meditating each day, she initiates an inner journey that shakes her free from the familiar. As the months pass, she engages her guilt and sorrow, confronts her failures, weighs the limits of therapy and self-forgiveness, and seeks to unleash the healing powers of the unconscious and of love.

Readers will find this an absorbing and dramatic novel of abuse, resilience, and the quest for transformation.

TAD CRAWFORDis the author of the novels A Floating Life and On Wine-Dark Seas as well asThe Secret Life of Moneyand a dozen other nonfiction books. His stories and articles have appeared in American Artist, Art in America, The Caf Irreal, Confrontation, Communication Arts, Family Circle, Glamour, Guernica, The Nation, and Writer's Digest. Crawford is the founder and publisher of Allworth Press. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts award, he grew up in the artists' colony of Woodstock, New York, and now lives in New York City.