Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

by Williams, Terry Tempest

• ISBN13: 9780679740247
• ISBN10: 0679740244
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-09-01
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation,Refugetransforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.

Author Biography

Terry Tempest Williams lives in Grand County, Utah.

Table of Contents

Prologue	3	(2)
Burrowing Owls
lake level: 4204.70'	5	(16)
Whimbrels
lake level: 4203.25'	21	(21)
Snowy Egrets
lake level: 4204.05'	42	(8)
Barn Swallows
lake level: 4204.75'	50	(4)
Peregrine Falcon
lake level: 4205.40'	54	(4)
Wilson's Phalarope
lake level: 4206.15'	58	(8)
California Gulls
lake level: 4207.75'	66	(11)
Ravens
lake level: 4209.10'	77	(5)
Pink Flamingos
lake level: 4208.00'	82	(9)
Snow Buntings
lake level: 4209.15'	91	(5)
White Pelicans
lake level: 4209.90'	96	(12)
Yellow-Headed Blackbirds
lake level: 4209.55'	108	(2)
Redheads
lake level: 4208.50'	110	(5)
Killdeer
lake level: 4208.40'	115	(5)
Whistling Swan
lake level: 4208.35'	120	(3)
Great Horned Owl
lake level: 4208.45'	123	(3)
Roadrunner
lake level: 4210.90'	126	(9)
Magpies
lake level: 4211.30'	135	(6)
Long-Billed Curlews
lake level: 4211.65'	141	(12)
Western Tanager
lake level: 4211.85'	153	(6)
Gray Jays
lake level: 4211.40'	159	(8)
Meadowlarks
lake level: 4211.00'	167	(7)
Storm Petrel
lake level: 4210.85'	174	(5)
Greater Yellowlegs
lake level: 4210.80'	179	(12)
Canada Geese
lake level: 4210.95'	191	(3)
Bald Eagles
lake level: 4211.10'	194	(10)
Red-Shafted Flicker
lake level: 4211.15'	204	(6)
Dark-Eyed Junco
lake level: 4211.20'	210	(7)
Sanderlings
lake level: 4211.35'	217	(16)
Birds-Of-Paradise
lake level: 4211.65'	233	(6)
Pintails, Mallards, And Teals
lake level: 4211.85'	239	(14)
Bitterns
lake level: 4210.20'	253	(2)
Snowy Plovers
lake level: 4209.10'	255	(11)
Great Blue Heron
lake level: 4207.05'	266	(5)
Screech Owls
lake level: 4206.00'	271	(3)
Avocets and Stilts
lake level: 4204.70'	274	(7)
The Clan of One-Breasted Women
Epilogue	281	(10)
Acknowledgements	291	(8)
Birds Associated with Great Salt Lake	299