Publishers Weekly
08/12/2019
In a debut memoir that tacks between sailing and parenting, travel writer Seely details a circuitous series of adventures that occasionally veers off course. She and her husband, James, reevaluate their lives following career changes and health threats, and decide “we could live safe, small lives or try something totally new.” That something new translates to “a ridiculous amount of boat”—the purchase of Heron, a “fifty-four-foot money pit” neither knows how to sail. Driven by a quest—Seely to spot the rare spirit bear in Canada’s Great Bear Rain Forest, James to uncover an ancient longhouse in British Columbia—the couple set sail from Seattle following their younger son’s departure for college. They guide Heron northward in a trial-by-water journey, dodging rapids, exploring deepwater fjords, anchoring in remote coves and learning about First Nations culture in tribal villages threatened by pipeline development. Seely’s travel writing is luminous, her prose mystical and revelatory—“the exquisite solitude felt glorious... like a gift to myself, and I tried to memorize these moments... to keep all these things inside me”—but in describing the empty nest, she relies on such clichés as feeling “punched in the gut.” Regardless, Seely’s nautical journey makes for an intimate, satisfying narrative. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Nancy Pearl Book Award Finalist 2020
Silver Nautilus Book Award Winner 2019
“Refreshingly relatable...Uncharted [is a] firm reminder that despite the independent allure of solo travel, sometimes we can’t change on our own.”
—Outside
“Exquisitely written.”
—Forbes
“Seely captures the action and nature encountered on the couple’s journey in lyrical prose and descriptions. As they navigate their way through fiords and rough waters and feel the sting of cold air, they also find a new way to envision their future together.”
—Wall Street Journal, “The Best Books About Retirement and Aging of 2019”
“Like Cheryl Strayed and M. Wylie Blanchett, Kim Brown Seely reminds us that the best travel narratives are about emotional explorations even more than physical ones.”
—Erica Bauermeister, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients
“Seely’s travel writing is luminous, her prose mystical and revelatory...[her] nautical journey makes for an intimate, satisfying narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Just because I’ll never follow in Seely's footsteps doesn’t mean that reading the account of her journey wasn’t wonderfully exciting from the safety of my sofa.”
—Margot Kahn, Bust
“There are close calls, lost anchors and lost tempers, yet what Seely finds along the way makes Uncharted one of the most compelling books of nature writing that I’ve read in a while.”
—Post and Courier
“Uncharted is a marvelous journey of beauty and wonder, love and loss, loons and eagles, hemlocks and giant kelp, sea wolves, humpback whales, and bears.”
—Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake
“Uncharted is the Moby Dick of empty-nest tales. Kim Brown Seely, her sons suddenly grown-up and gone, journeys on a sailboat through risky Northwest waters, meditating on the pains and blessings of marriage, parenthood, and escape to the wilds.”
—Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14
“Kim Seely’s page-turning meditation on marriage, family, letting go, and the pull of the unknown is equal parts inspiration and confessional, with the untamed Pacific Northwest coast as a backdrop.”
—Marika Cain, Virtuoso Life
“Uncharted takes us on a voyage of adventure that is at its heart, a meditation on the changing nature of love.”
—Leslie T. Sharpe, author of The Quarry Fox
“A beautifully transporting journey.”
—Paul Nicklen, National Geographic photographer
