num_pages: 320
description: Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She eats road kill wrestles alligators rides horses bareback and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built herself in an island wilderness. Shes had three husbands and many lovers one of whom she shot and killed in self-defense. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island a national park off the coast of Georgia.Cumberland is the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier islandover forty square miles of pristine wilderness celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie owned much of Cumberland and his widow Lucy made it a Gilded Age playground. But in recent years Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the islands future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high-school diploma tries to stop one of the wealthiest families in America? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in no matter the cost.
language: English
title: Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island
publisher: Grove Press