H is for Hawk

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Nonfiction - Memoir
2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Read by the author
Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins Finished on June 24, 2017
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

This book has won numerous awards!

Costa Book Award for Biography (2014), Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Roman (2016), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Autobiography (2015), Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (2014), Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction (Shortlist) (2016), Kirkus Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (Finalist) (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2015), Waterstones Book of the Year Nominee (2014), Costa Book of the Year (2014), The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2015)

I don't think I would have read this book without all the enthusiastic reviews by fellow bloggers. The audio was the ticket for me and I loved listening to the author's voice as she read her story. As one of my friends said, it wasn't necessarily the subject matter that was compelling, but rather the author's pleasant voice. I enjoyed Macdonald's memoir, particularly her thoughts on grief (and not so much her comparisons of falconry to T.H. White's novel), but I didn't love it, and it took me nearly an entire month to listen to all 11 hours.

On Grief:

Here’s a word. Bereavement. Or, Bereaved. Bereft. It’s from the Old English bereafian, meaning ‘to deprive of, take away, seize, rob’. Robbed. Seized. It happens to everyone. But you feel it alone. Shocking loss isn’t to be shared, no matter how hard you try.

and

The archaeology of grief is not ordered. It is more like earth under a spade, turning up things you had forgotten. Surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world.