Desert Sojourn: A Woman's Forty Days and Nights Alone

""I'm going to the desert... because if I don't I think a part of me will die."" After attending an out-of-town business seminar, Holmes-Binney, a frustrated editor in a failing marriage, was convinced that she must do something radical to reshape her life. In this memoir, the author recounts how she returned to her family in California and announced her plans to spend 40 days in a remote region of Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert. But she was little prepared for the harsh realities of her journey. Almost immediately, Holmes-Binney had to contend with torrential rains that soaked her clothes and ruined food. After the rain came a fierce snowstorm that essentially froze Holmes-Binney into her small shelter. Holmes-Binney describes her physical and psychological ordeal in detail. At one point, she thought she heard the ringing of a cell phone, an impossibility in the remote region: ""not a single human print, and I'm totally mystified until it strikes me that perhaps whoever-it-is isn't in the canyon. It's possible that the sounds came from the other side of the cliffs .And that's when the phone rings again."" Even readers unable to understand how Holmes-Binney could walk out on her children to undertake this journey will feel a part of her pain and fear. While this book may not persuade people to undertake a spiritual journey similar to the author's, the telling of her sojourn is crisp, vivid and realistic. (July)