01/22/2024
“I want out of this life,” Wilson declares to her husband, Tom, in the opening pages of this affecting debut, a memoir that sweeps readers to a place that feels simultaneously relatable and completely foreign. Her plan to escape: a 25,000 mile road trip along the length of Africa, “from Cape Town to Cairo.” After hard days in which the couple “shredded and analyzed our lives,” Tom surprises her: “I’ll come with you. Let’s do it.” That kicks off the adventure of a lifetime, complete with trials (brake trouble in Zambia), revelations (the 27,000 “lime-encrusted skeletons” unearthed from a mass grave in Rwanda), and wonder (kayaking the Nile; “a moonless sky swarming with stars”; beholding the fossil skeleton of early human Lucy).
The couple’s journey, of course—like all journeys—finds them traversing both the world itself but also plunging into themselves, reconnecting and moving their marriage “from breakdown to breakthrough.” Wilson’s account touches on wrenching topics, among them racial inequality, global threats, physical assaults, and genocide, with Wilson confronting the origins of humanity and also its failings, asking “why humans don’t do more to protect our most vulnerable.” The personal, too, is moving, as the couple finds this trip challenging nearly every belief, opinion, and value they held, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of their place in the world and in each other’s lives.
For all the pained material, including a shocking arrest, reading Wilson’s experiences is a thought provoking pleasure. Wilson’s frankness, vulnerability, and precision of language give power to her considerations of heartbreaks and joys in a relationship. All You’ll See Is Sky suggests that relationships work not because of what happens to couples, but because of how couples choose to handle what they’re facing. Witnessing Wilson’s transformation from brokenness to healing on a once-in-a-lifetime trip will please readers of both travelogues and relationship memoirs.
Takeaway: A couple’s captivating journey across Africa and into their relationship.
Comparable Titles: Josh Barkan’s Wonder Travels, Nikki Vargas’s Call You When i Land.
Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A
A remembrance that doesn’t turn away from difficult facts.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Exceptionally candid, inherently interesting, impressively well written, organized, and presented . . . the kind of intensely personal, yet universally appealing memoir that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf.” —Midwest Book Review
“In this exquisitely written memoir, Wilson weaves an authentic and suspenseful tale capturing what it means to find the grace within the grit that confronts all of us.” —Stephanie Raffelock, editor of Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis and author of A Delightful Little Book On Aging and Creatrix Rising
“All You’ll See Is Sky is an extraordinary true story. This gripping memoir winds you through the African continent as the author spins tales of history, nature, culture, and people she meets along her pilgrimage of her birthland. Truly shocking, you’ll never forget this powerful book of growth, grief, and healing.” —Lucinda Jackson, author of Just a Girl and Project Escape
“Vivid, raw in its candor, and sensitive to the broad diversity of cultures and people, All You'll See is Sky takes us on a life changing journey in Africa. This memoir is rich with the beauty of the continent—the roaring grunts of hippos, the diesel fumes, the sandstorms. It speaks profound truths about responsibility and compassion, intimacy and connection.” —Marlena Maduro Baraf, author of At the Narrow Waist of the World and coauthor of Three Poets/Tres Poetas
“With honesty and humility, Janet A. Wilson takes the reader on a roller coaster ride through Africa with all the sights, sounds, and history of a very complex continent. Set against the beautiful backdrop of the land and the people of Africa, All You'll See is Sky is a gripping and enjoyable read.” —Vicki Cody, author of Army Wife and Fly Safe
“Janet’s prose is clear, rich, and from the heart, and opens a window into another world. She shares a deep immersion into the beauty and power of the African wilderness and culture, and exposes the complicated and emotional knot what constitutes a true partnership.” —Annie Chappell, author of Away Up The North Fork: A Girl Search for Home in the Wilderness
2024-01-09
In this memoir, an automobile accident during a South African Canadian woman’s trip back to Africa results in tragedy.
In 2005, 25 years after leaving South Africa for a materially successful life in Canada as a nurse, Wilson came to feel that her life was emotionally empty. She and her South African husband returned to their native continent for an eight-month journey, driving from its southernmost point, Cape Agulhas, South Africa, to Egypt, through the varying landscapes of a total of 12 African countries. She had two goals: to experience the land she loved but had left due to the apartheid regime in South Africa, and to reconnect with herself and her spouse. The rugged trek encompassed natural wonders and roads that were challenging for Land Cruisers. Remote camping enabled close encounters with elephants, lions, gorillas, and other animals. Her compelling descriptions engage the senses, as in an account of seeing an elephant: “I listened to the crush of leaves, sticks, and rotting fruit on the ground as she walked around the tree….I breathed in the sweet, candy-like aroma of elephant-crushed marula fruit.” She also shows how Johannesburg’s Apartheid Museum and memorials to enslaved people in Tanzania and the recent Rwandan genocide are reminders of past inhumanities on the continent. In a small village in Ethiopia, the journey took a horrifying turn when Wilson, driving slowly, accidentally struck a 9-year-old boy, who died of his injuries. Grief- and guilt-stricken, she was allowed to make amends to the family, and after she left them, she writes, she “wondered if I would ever be able to see anything again except that little boy’s terrified face sinking under the front of our Cruiser….nor was I sure I even had the moral right to see and enjoy the Africa I had wanted so much to find again.” Wilson writes honestly in the final chapters of her remorse over the child’s death, and how it changed her perspective on her own life and relationships with others; in doing so, she honors the lives that her choices changed.
A remembrance that doesn’t turn away from difficult facts.