The Lonely Other

The Lonely Other chronicles the life of a woman constantly facing new amazements. In "Wound Chevy at Wounded Knee" (Best of the Best American Essays 1994]) Diana Hume Georgia recounts how she lived a trapped and futile life as a white teenage bride on an Indian reservation. As an adult she confronts drunken hunters outside her isolated cabin; she faces her fear of heights by climbing in the White Mountains; she unflinchingly delves into her long-standing engagement with Anne Sexton's poetry, and into her own father's suicide. Always she wonders: Can women learn to travel alone, on roads and in their daily lives, without fear.By telling tales that are both self-deprecating and deliciously human, George directs us to the discoveries available when one abandons standard operating procedure and lights out for the territory ahead.-Georgia Review Like Annie Dillard and Kathleen Norris, George explores self and place and the connections between the two... Combining natural, cultural and personal history, these essays are infused with a sense of being on the road... When the landscape prevails George unrehearsedly reaches outside herself to embrace her fears and wounds in a quest for mindful living...-Publishers Weekly "Introspective, humorous, confrontational, compassionate and invariably honest, George addresses the human condition from the point of view of a committed feminist." -Maxine Kumin Offers new levels of understanding of all kinds of landscapes--physical, political, emotional, and spiritual. With intelligence, grace, and wry humor, Diana Hume George honors and celebrates the complex truths of a woman's journey.-Barbara FindlenDiana Hume George ... has written a compelling book of travel essays, an American woman's 'on the road' chronicle... George is a beguiling story-teller. Her writing is gritty but graceful, funny but soul-searching, full of erudition and good common sense.-Deborah TallThe Lonely Other is a book of travel essays like no other. Here is America the beautiful, the ugly, the crazy, the hopeless and awesome--urban and wilderness, Yellowstone and Wounded Knee and Almogordo, a porn parlor in Times Square and the Trappist monastery in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived and worked, and much, much more. These are the adventures of a woman in her prime, walking the lonesome valley of our land by herself and with others. It is the reader's enormous good fortune that Diana Hume George is not only a lover of the road but a stunningly excellent writer." -Alicia Ostriker, Rutgers University author of Stealing the Language: the Emergence of Women's Poetry in AmericaBack Cover Publisher's copy: (From first edition)The Lonely Other chronicles the life of a woman constantly facing new amazements. In "Wounded Chevy at Wounded Knee" (Best of the Best American Essays 1994]) Diana Hume George recounts how she lived a trapped and futile life as a white teenage bride on an Indian reservation. As an adult she confronts drunken hunters outside her isolated cabin; she faces her fear of heights by climbing in the White Mountains; she unflinchingly delves into her long-standing engagement with Anne Sexton's poetry, and into her own father's suicide. Always she wonders: Can women learn to travel alone, on roads and in their daily lives, without fear?Fearless and penetrating, by turns suspenseful and contemplative, The Lonely Other is one of the most beautifully integrated fusions of cultural criticism and memoir I've ever read.-Ann Pancake(Could also break this up after "contemplative," put a period there, go with frag for the opener. At any rate, feel free to tweak this however you like. I did have "personal experience" instead of "memoir," but that doesn't feel parallel.)