Away Up the North Fork: A Girl's Search for Home in the Wilderness

In the 1970s, Annie Chappell dreams of a homesteading life like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods. She runs away from boarding school to find Bill, a mountain man Vietnam vet, but faces challenges. Her experiences with Bill push her to face her own strengths and fears, and her relationship with her parents and home.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 08 November 2022
Publisher: She Writes Press

In the 1970s, Annie Chappell yearns for a simple homesteading life, inspired by the idyllic portrayal in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods. She believes that reaching this idyllic destination would alleviate the troubles she faces at home, including alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, and the challenges of modern-day life. While home in Denver during a break from boarding school in the spring of 1973, Annie meets Bill, a mountain man Vietnam veteran who is passing through town on his way back to his cabin on the Canadian border in Montana. Annie falls deeply in love with the life Bill describes, and in October, she decides to run away from boarding school in the East to be with him. After months of imagining a life together, Annie embarks on her journey to find Bill, hoping to learn the wild ways from him. However, her plan fails, and she returns to school to graduate. Despite this setback, Annie continues to exchange letters with Bill for the rest of the school year and even after graduation, with her parents' blessing, she moves to Montana to live with him. Homesteading in the wilderness with an older man presents Annie with unexpected challenges that she has not anticipated. Through her experiences with Bill, Annie is pushed to confront her own strengths and fears, as well as her relationship with her parents and home. She begins to unravel the complexities of her identity and figure out who she truly wants to be.

Weight: 390g
Dimension: 141 x 215 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781647422691