AWAY UP THE NORTH FORK

In this memoir, a woman recalls her sudden retreat as a troubled teenager into the wilderness to start over with a man she hardly knew.

Chappell was raised in privileged circumstances—she enjoyed all the comforts of upper-middle- class life, including a country club membership and private school. But her life at home was rife with discontent, a condition she describes with great candor and sensitivity. She recounts that her parents’ marriage was in trouble and her mother sought solace in alcohol. In addition, the author reveals that she was subjected to repeated sexual abuse by her brother-in-law. She convinced her parents to send her to a boarding school in Troy, New York, but even that escape didn’t prove sufficient. When she met Bill, an older man who lived a rugged life in Montana on the Canadian border on a homestead he called Val Halla, she immediately became infatuated, and decided she would start a new life with him. They began to exchange letters, and while he showed her little encouragement at first, she steadfastly resolved to carry out her plan. Before her senior year, she ran away from school, an act of “outright rebellion” that her parents, with the help of the headmaster, Dennis Collins, were able to waylay. Chappell agreed to finish school but she never gave up her dream to move in with Bill. She remained determined, even after his letters revealed a darker side of him, one prone to outlandish conspiracy theories, wild predictions about an “apocalyptic future,” and blustery self-aggrandizement. At one point, Bill sent her a manifesto of sorts in which he dogmatically declared that “the college degree is a subliminal deception & mockery to an education.” His sense of superiority was disconcerting, but she shared his bleak critique of modern culture, a set of misgivings she embraced: “Yes, I thought, reading his premises, that looks about right.” Chappell finally moved in with Bill and they began a romantic relationship, but one that proved far less satisfying than she hoped—he turned out to be cranky, imperious, and prone to a volatile impatience.

Chappell’s remembrance is as thoughtfully rendered as it is elegantly composed. While her experience of living in the wilds with Bill was far from ideal—she ultimately decided to leave—she refuses to condemn the adventure in its entirety. In fact, she recalls her time in Montana with considerable fondness as a necessary corrective to the failings of contemporary life: “My short time with Bill at Val Halla reinforced what I already believed about living simply, gave me the strength and tools to understand a life without modern convenience, opened my senses, and cultivated in me a deep reverence for the natural world. That time would remain vivid, coloring the many other layers of my life—stitched and torn, patched and added to along the way.” But this is a decidedly personal and narrow memoir—the author includes numerous letters in their entirety between herself and her parents as well as family photographs. While her intricate story is intriguing, it is best suited to readers who know her.

An impressively meditative but idiosyncratic account of a remarkable journey.