Wild author Cheryl Strayed, who is played by Reese Witherspoon in the film version, on death, divorce and heroin
Following the death of her mother and the break-up of her marriage, the author embarked on a life-changing 94-day solo hike of the Pacific Crest Trail at the age of 26
A home of our own I was born in Pennsylvania, in the USA, in 1968, in a town called Spangler. I have a younger brother and an older sister. When I was about five, my family moved to Minnesota and we lived in a town outside Minneapolis until I was 13. We were working class and poor.
My stepfather was a carpenter and he had an accident that laid him up for about a year. In the settlement he got a modest sum of US$12,000, which was equal to about a year’s pay. My mom said this was our first and only chance to own our own home, and suggested we buy 40 acres (16 hectares) of land in northern Minnesota, which is what US$12,000 could get us.
We built our own house. We didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity or running water through many of those years. I complained about it because, like most teenagers, I wanted to be normal and live like everyone I saw on TV. For the record, we didn’t have a TV, but I still gleaned that I was different. My mother would always say to me, “You will thank me for this experience later because it’s character-building.”
Lost in sorrow Even though I was washing my hair in a pot heated over a wood stove, at school I tried to be the cute, pretty girl on the outside. I earned my own money from the time I was 13 and bought my own clothes. As soon as I left home to go to college at 17, I paid for everything.
I went to the University of Minnesota and did a double major in English and women’s studies. Feminist activism and literature have always been my twin passions. I got married while I was at college. I was 19 and he was two years older.
I was devastated by grief and I turned that sorrow into self-destruction. I went to Portland. It was very much in vogue among my age group to use heroin. When it was offered to me, I gleefully accepted
My mom died in the spring break of my senior year – that was the loss that split my life in two. She died when she was 45 of lung cancer; she wasn’t a smoker. Seven weeks after she found out she had cancer, she died. I didn’t know how to live without her. I was an orphan – I didn’t have a relationship with my father, and my stepfather wasn’t able to continue to be a surrogate father to me after my mom died, so I was trying to find my way in the world and I got lost in my sorrow.
What’s in a name? After college I got a job as a feminist activist and was a political organiser for a non-profit called Women Against Military Madness. I was a good daughter and tried to keep my family together; I tried to replace my mom in my family’s life and that doesn’t work.
