H IS FOR HAWK by Helen Macdonald (non-fic)

Helen Macdonald is a poet, historian, and falconer.  Her award winning memoir, including being on the "10 Best Books" list of the New York Times for 2015, is a psychological study of the deep emotional healing of the anguish the author felt in the year after her father died.  The book reads like an introspective diary of the road to recovery and the discovery of truths about herself and Mabel, her beloved goshawk. Interestingly, Macdonald's relationship with Mable is not so different than that of the two main characters in Szebo's book, "The Door,"which I also reviewed this month.

Macdonald entwines her story with that of T. H. White, the 20th century author of "The Once and Future King," the story of Camelot. White also tried to find salvation in the training of a goshawk.  Bullied at school and mentally abused by his parents, White grew up timid, scarred, and unsure of his sexual identity.  He ended up teaching in a British Public School for boys where disliking his job,he became cynical and most likely unpleasant to his students. Unlike Macdonald, he failed to fully understand either himself or the wildness of the hawk he attempted to train.

In the aftermath of her father's untimely death, Macdonald became intensely self-reflective. She lived in psychological isolation without close female friends even keeping her mother and sister at arm's length.  Since the time she was a child, Helen was interested in falconry and goshawks, the largest and most powerful of the Falcons.  She aspired to become an austringer and trainer of goshawks.  It seemed she and Mabel we're fated to be together.

While there were many many difficult moments with Mabel, who lived in the house with Macdonald, in the end Mabel, though a prisoner of sort, was Macdonald's liberator.  Macdonald wanted to identify and become Mabel, but in her journey she discovered that she was......"not the hawk, no matter how much I pared myself away, no matter how many times I lost myself in blood and leaves and fields.  I was the figure standing underneath the tree at nightfall, collar upturned against the damp, waiting patiently for the hawk to return."

And also: "In my time with Mabel I've learned how you feel more human once you have known, even in your imagination, what it is like to be not.  And I have learned, too, the danger that comes in mistaking the wildness we give a thing for the wildness that animate it."

Unlike, White's failed experience, Helen's and Mabel's is a success story.  Like Macdonald, the reader comes away with a respect for a wild creature and also a respect for Macdonald's understanding of her own limitations and those of her goshawk, Mabel.

If you love the wild side of nature, you are sure to enjoy this book.