This is Women’s Gear Guide first book review, so go easy on me. I came across Still Points North by Leigh Newman when looking for some fresh fodder to share with you all, so naturally I googled “outdoor women’s books.” The author, Leigh Newman, who’s kind of a big deal (deputy editor at Oprah.com, an editor-at-large for an indie publishing house and a prolific travel and lifestyle writer) was kind enough to send me this book a couple of months back for a review. As soon as I started turning the pages of Still Points North, a memoir of Newman’s childhood in Alaska and transition into adulthood, I couldn’t stop. I’ll get into more detail about my thoughts on the book further down, but first check out this run down of the book so you know what I’m talking about.
Still Points North by Leigh Newman
Part adventure story, part love story, part homecoming, Still Points North is a page-turning memoir that explores the extremes of belonging and exile, and the difference between how to survive and knowing how to truly live.
Navigating the fraught terrain of her family’s unraveling, Newman did what any outdoorsman would do: She adapted. With her father she fished remote rivers, hunted caribou, and packed her own shotgun shells. With her mother she memorized the names of antique furniture, composed proper bread-and-butter notes, and studied Latin poetry at a private girl’s school. Charting her way through these two very different worlds, Newman learned to never get attached to people or places, and to leave others before they left her. As an adult, she explored the most distant reaches of the globe as a travel writer, yet had difficulty navigating the far more foreign landscape of love and marriage.
Women’s Gear Guide Review
The first half of the book is almost entirely devoted to Leigh’s experience as a young child from the first summer in Alaska with her father after her parents divorced. She writes with the clarity (or lack thereof) of her seven-year-old mind, and its astonishing how she can really make you see change, heartbreak and family ties through the eyes of child. She learns to gut fish, navigate dangerous rivers, hunt and even co-pilot a plane, at a very young age, and shares her sometimes quick or delayed learning process, and even describes gutting a fish as a child doing house chores would, with utter boredom. That first summer after the divorce is a survival story for her, essentially. When visiting her father she is expected—and generally enjoys the responsibility—to assist her father’s fishing, hunting and flying expeditions. She must adapt her skills and perspective when with her father to please him, and subdue her feelings and opinions from her mother in Baltimore, to avoid hurting her. She learns to survive in the wilderness and in suburbia, all while navigating her duties to her parents. As an adult she’s an expert at jumping in and out of jobs, writing assignments and even cities. She ultimately ends up in New York and meets the perfect man. And realizes she isn’t so great at settling down and opening up. It’s almost painful to read at times, watching her take steps forward and five steps back, and then two more back even further. I was cheering her on, and then several pages later I’d be shaking my my head at her. She often sabotages herself, confusing independence as a means to an end. Leigh Newman depicts her own modern survival story, and its an all-too familiar story for any outdoor-saavy “I can hang with the boys” sort of a gal, or anyone who has turned inwards for comfort only to find that life is better traveled with others.
