The Wild Silence

March 1, 2021

Following immediately after her bestselling The Salt Path, this latest book by Winn traces her life after she and her husband Moth have moved indoors after experiencing homelessness and walking England's South West Coast Path. But life is not through with its punches; Moth's health starts to decline and Winn receives news that her mother is in end-of-life care at a local hospital. In this sequel to her first memoir, readers follow the couple's next stage in life. While nature is still a dominant feature in this book, as it was in the last, the return to humanity, adjusting to life, and finding balance are the overarching themes. As Winn confronts life and death issues, the unexpected popularity of The Salt Path also brings up echoes of the past. Tough decisions must be made, but can Winn find the strength to make them? VERDICT Winn's writing beautifully evokes the natural world, whether she is describing a doe rummaging in an orchard or her innermost conflicted feelings. This is a perfect "what happened next" memoir that gives closure to readers of the first book, and which both fans and new readers will enjoy.--Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2021
Readers met Winn when she and her husband, Moth, embarked on a 630-mile hike in The Salt Path (2019). After tramping the South West Coast Path, they now have housing, and while they are warm and dry, their lives are still unsettled. Moth works on a degree, but his Parkinson's-like disease has progressed, leaving him forgetful and confused, and Winn is withdrawn and restless within her four walls. Money, too, is still a worry. When her mother suffers a debilitating stroke, Winn struggles with a life-or-death decision. Watching her mother die and Moth deteriorate, Winn yearns for the time when they touched a ""thin place"" on that path, a kind of spiritual encounter. Undertaking the project of writing The Salt Path was a way to help Moth remember, and the success of that book created new opportunities (including rescuing a derelict farm and hiking in Iceland). Readers will delight in Winn's account here of falling in love with Moth. A must-read for lovers of the first book; fans of nature writing should also check this out.

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April 12, 2021
British author Winn (The Salt Path) returns with a powerful memoir about overcoming life's obstacles. When Winn's husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease, the two set out on a trek along England's longest waymarked path. This odyssey served as the premise of Salt Path, and here Winn picks up where that journey ends. Soon after they returned from their trip, Winn's mother suffered a fatal stroke, leaving Winn to grieve her loss while simultaneously tending to her husband's decline: "He was vanishing like sea mist in the heat of the sun." Winn and Moth struggled to hold onto hope, until an estate owner who had been moved by Winn's memoir offered them the chance to revive a neglected farm in Cornwall. This gift led to a newfound sense of accomplishment that compelled them to embark on another epic trip, this time across Iceland. It's impossible not to fall for Winn's beautiful prose and her fierce advocacy for her husband. Her descriptive powers pull readers in, and the pacing is pitch-perfect. This powerful narrative proves the resilience of the human spirit and stuns with its grace.

Starred review from February 15, 2021
A moving follow-up to the author's 2018 memoir, The Salt Path. Winn resumes her narrative a year after she and her husband, Moth, completed a 630-mile walk along England's South West Coast Path, a passage through homelessness forced by their eviction from a family home of 20 years. After finding a small rental in the Cornish village of Polruan and living off limited funds, Winn looked for work, and Moth continued in his quest to earn his academic degree, hoping to teach despite the impediment of a "terminal neurodegenerative disease." As Moth's life became more sedentary, the faltering of his body and mind accelerated. Winn believed that the only thing that would arrest the deterioration was the same physical exertion and intense immersion in the wild that helped before. Restive and isolated, she needed the stillness of "wild silence" just as desperately. Curiously, Winn does not even mention her writing process until nearly 100 pages into the book, when she recounts how The Salt Path was written and how it changed their lives. The author also revisits her childhood, the death of her mother, the couple's risky attempt to revive a ruined farm, and her giddy early days with Moth. Winn has developed a reputation for powerful writing on the natural world. Her descriptions are highly visual, often poetic. There are passages so perfectly apt, melancholy, or achingly lovely that you want to stop and live inside the text, though occasionally she loses control and begins to romanticize. Yet Winn's talent is undeniable, as is her capacity to locate the profound amid the din of modern life. We see her embrace change, from self-imposed isolation and total emotional reliance on Moth to embracing new possibilities. A memorable celebration of a "silent enmeshing of lives lived in unison," a potent marriage of heart and mind.

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