Waiting out a midlife crisis

In a memoir that skillfully blends the monastic spirit of a self-imposed retreat with the isolation of the wilderness, Oregon poet and nonfiction writer John Daniel recounts his experience living nearly five midwinter months in the Rogue River Gorge.

At 52, Daniel takes stock of his life with a well-supplied cabin as hermitage, and wild turkeys, bobcats and owls as confreres. The solitude forces him to joust with his past: his years as college dropout, amateur mountain-climber and 1960s draft resistor. Looming above is the ghost of his father, a well-known labor union organizer.

Sustained by the natural world, Daniel grapples with the demons of midlife and finds wholeness in this funny, wry and searingly honest book.

-- Susan Dworski