Out of the Woods: A Memoir of Wayfinding
The carefully constructed home Darling had created in her Manhattan apartment began to fall apart when her husband died.  When their only child left for college, and the nest emptied completely, Darling knew she had to reinvent or rediscover herself lest she succumb to the cumulative grief of both events.  She abandoned the verve and bustle of New York for the pervasive solitude of Vermont, buying a remote backwoods cabin that could only generously be called rustic.  Darling discovers that what she doesn’t know about rural life is nearly eclipsed by what she doesn’t know about herself, yet her determination to learn not only how to live but how to survive is a project she embraces with a journalist’s passion for truth and fact-finding.  Along with unrelenting loneliness and unyielding Yankee stoicism, Darling also confronts her own mortality when she is diagnosed with breast cancer.  Darling has written a fierce and forthright chronicle of one formidable woman’s courageous journey of healing and revelation, gratitude and resilience. --Carol Haggas