Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Terry Tempest Williams, student of Wallace Stegner, friend of Cactus Jack (Edward Abbey), Mormon (though her religious views seldom appear in here writings) and is from Utah. With that pedigree one is not surprised that she is a prominent western nature writer. She writes about the hardships she faced with the changing environment i Utah (Utah was undergoing a drought) and medical issue that arise from the atomic bomb testing in Arizona. In the epilogue of the book (titled The Clan of One Breasted Women) she writes "I belong to a Clan of One Breasted Women. My mother, my grandmother and six aunts have all had mastectomies. Seven of them are dead."

Despite all her problems she finds solace in her family and in the rugged nature that is Utah. It is a life reaffirming book and it lays out the need that we have for the natural world.