Skywalker Book Sales Increase upon Publication of ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed’s moving memoir of hiking the PCT alone, after her mother’s death, divorce with her still-loved husband, and heroin abuse is shining the focus on the Pacific Crest Trail. This is great news for everyone–especially those who have never heard about the PCT, but will end up on life-changing hikes on it some day. Yep, it definitely will happen. That’s the nature of the game.
Mrs. Strayed mentions in her book that she had never heard of the PCT until seeing a guidebook on it at a bookstore. She didn’t buy it that day, but it did plant the idea in her head. She went and picked it up the next day. Soon she was hooked.
Let me say, I loved hiking in the midst of ‘the bubble’ of thru-hikers on the PCT. It added a great social element, increased my fortitude, and heck–made it a lot easier to write a narrative about the whole experience. If I do the PCT again, I will definitely attend the Kickoff Party in the desert, and head out into the desert with the masses a second time. Having said that, this makes Mrs. Strayed’s book, Wild, all the more interesting to me. Yes, I probably could go out there alone for a significant amount of time. In fact, I was alone a significant portion of the time even hiking in ‘the bubble’. But I certainly didn’t choose it. Thus, Mrs. Strayed’s book is more of a tour-de-force of her psyche. In fact, you could almost compare her journey to that of Chris McCandless in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.
Hopefully the movie about her (played by Reese Witherspoon) will be as successful. Better yet, hopefully the Pacific Crest Trail will gain more adherents, followers, and hikers. We will all be better off as a society for it. And as an author, I sure appreciate the spotlight Mrs. Strayed has focused on this great national scenic trail.
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