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— A U T H O R B I O — — R E A D A L I K E S — Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New Alone in Antarctica by Felicity Aston York Times bestselling memoir Wild, the New York Times bestsellers Tiny Beautiful Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Felicity Things and Brave Enough, and the novel Aston's Alone in Antarctica becomes Torch. Her books have been translated into an inspirational saga of one forty languages around the world. Wild was woman's battle through fear and chosen by Oprah Winfrey as her first loneliness as she honestly confronts selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. The Oscar-nominated movie adaptation of Wild stars Reese both the physical challenges of her Witherspoon as Cheryl and Laura Dern as Cheryl's mother, adventure, as well as her own Bobbi. human vulnerabilities The film was directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, with a screen- play by Nick Hornby. Strayed's essays have been published Once Upon a River by Ronnie Jo Campbell in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, The Sun, Tin House, and elsewhere. Strayed is the co-host, along with Steve Almond, of the WBUR podcast Dear Sugar Radio, Margo Crane, a beautiful and which originated with her popular Dear Sugar advice uncanny markswoman takes to the column on The Rumpus. Strayed holds an MFA in fiction Stark River after being complicit in writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree the death of her father and embarks from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Portland, on an odyssey in search of her Oregon. (Source: Cherylstrayed.com, 2016) vanished mother in this novel from the National Book Award finalist. “A literary and human Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert triumph” -The New York Times Book Review Traces the author's decision to quit “...soul-enhancing.” her job and travel the world for a -Oprah year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce, a journey that took her to three places in her quest to “Brilliant.” explore her own nature and learn -Houston Chronicle the art of spiritual balance. (Source: NoveList Plus, 2016) — D I S C U S S I O N Q U E S T I O N S — — S U M M A R Y — 1) “The Pacific Crest Trail wasn’t a world to me then. It 8) Strayed writes that the point of the PCT “had only to do At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost was an idea, vague and outlandish, full of promise and with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her mystery. Something bloomed inside me as I traced its walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the family scattered and her own marriage was soon jagged line with my finger on a map.” Why did the PCT accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, capture Strayed’s imagination at that point in her life? deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With sunsets.” How does this sensation help Strayed to find her no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she 2) Each section of the book opens with a literary quote way back into the world beyond the wilderness? would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific or two. What do they tell you about what’s to come in Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California the pages that follow? How does Strayed’s pairing of, 9) On her journey, Strayed carries several totems. What and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it say, Adrienne Rich and Joni Mitchell provide insight into does the black feather mean to her? And the POW bracelet? alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with her way of thinking? Why does she find its loss symbolic? warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging 3) Strayed is quite forthright in her description of her 10) Does the hike help Strayed to get over Paul? If so, how? ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, own transgressions, and while she’s remorseful, she And if not, why? strengthened, and ultimately healed her. never seems ashamed. Is this a sign of strength or a (Source: Cherylstrayed.com, 2016) character flaw? 11) Strayed says her mother’s death “had obliterated me…. I was trapped by her but utterly alone. She would always be 4) “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my the empty bowl that no one could fill.” How did being on journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of the PCT on her mother’s fiftieth birthday help Strayed to a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a heal this wound? different story from the one women are told.” Fear is a 12) What was it about Strayed that inspired the generosity major theme in the book. Do you think Strayed was too of so many strangers on the PCT? afraid, or not afraid enough? When were you most afraid for her? 13) “There’s no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. But I was pretty certain as I sat there 5) Strayed chose her own last name: “Nothing fit until that night that if it hadn’t been for Eddie, I wouldn’t have one day when the word strayed came into my mind. found myself on the PCT.” How does this realization change Immediately, I looked it up in the dictionary and knew it Strayed’s attitude towards her stepfather? was mine…to wander from the proper path, to deviate from the direct course, to be lost, to become wild, to be 14) To lighten her load, Strayed burns each book as she without a mother or father, to be without a home, to reads it. Why doesn’t she burn the Adrienne Rich collection? move about aimlessly in search of something, to diverge or digress.” Did she choose well? What did you think 15) What role do books and reading play in this often when you learned she had assigned this word to solitary journey? herself—that it was no coincidence? (Source: Penguinrandomhouse.com, 2016) 6) On the trail, Strayed encounters mostly men. How does this work in her favor? What role does gender play when removed from the usual structure of society? 7) What does the reader learn from the horrific episode in which Strayed and her brother put down their mother’s horse? .

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