Being Found: A Guest Post by Amity Gaige
Heartwood is a taut tale about mothers and daughters, survival and life from the author of Sea Wife. Read on for an exclusive essay from Amity Gaige on what it means to be lost, creating her unforgettable protagonist, and how she began writing Heartwood.
Hardcover
$25.99
$28.99
Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick): A Novel
Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick): A Novel
By Amity Gaige
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$25.99
$28.99
“A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Candy House), Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
“A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Candy House), Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
I love writing books with atmospheric settings. When I chose to write a novel set in the woods, I decided that my protagonist, Valerie, would be an Appalachian Trail hiker who goes missing. I didn’t know why she went missing until deep into the writing process. I set the novel in Maine because Maine is the remotest and most densely forested part of the AT, and one of the most beautiful. Back in 2013, an older AT hiker had gotten lost in Maine, losing her life, and the idea of this woman waiting for rescue never left my mind. Then, in 2021 and with the help of a fellow author who had written a non-fiction book about the case, I went and visited the final campsite of this lost hiker. A cross was built there, and her baseball cap still hangs from it. I spent hours listening to the wind in the trees, the cries of birds, and watching insects wander through the forest floor. I do not know what it’s like to be so dangerously lost, but I certainly know how it feels to be emotionally and spiritually lost and to long for those I love. After all, I was writing Heartwood during the pandemic. My mother was living in a retirement community not ten minutes away, but I could not visit her. One of my central characters, Lena, was inspired by how difficult quarantine was for older people. During this period, nature was my solace, and my love of hiking and birdwatching remains to this day.
I did section-hike the AT in order to experience a taste of trail culture. But my knees hurt and I smelled so bad that my suspicions were confirmed: I’d never be one of the 25% of thru-hikers that successfully reach Mount Katahdin. I am not a brave woman, and I think that’s why I’m attracted to brave people. To create the character of Beverly, a Maine Game warden who leads the search for Valerie in Heartwood, I went on “ride-alongs” with several wardens. One was a young woman who loved her “toys” – she meant snowmobiles and boats. Not only do wardens police the outdoors for poachers and polluters, they also find lost people. Their record is stellar, but they don’t find everybody. Writing this novel reconnected me to others after the pandemic – not just the wardens and hikers, but to you – the eventual reader. What times in your life have you been “lost” emotionally or psychologically, and who rescued you? Heartwood is as much about being lost as it is about being found.
