Almost Animal: A Memoir of Motherhood, Wildness, and the American West
Nov 2026 · Spiegel & Grau LLC
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infoThis book will become available on November 10, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
“Full throttle, full immersion, full honesty, all surrender.”—LESLIE JAMISON, AUTHOR OF THE EMPATHY EXAMS
“A starting place for healing our upended selves, families, culture, world.”—CRAIG CHILDS, AUTHOR OF THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES
A ferocious, incandescent memoir about motherhood, liberation, and the natural world—following one woman’s journey to reclaim her wildest self.
A descendant of Utah’s earliest Mormon inhabitants, Amy Irvine spent her young adulthood rebelling against the patriarchy that was her inheritance. She sought adventure outdoors, climbing red rock, skiing backcountry powder, and fighting wildfires. She tested every limit imposed on her. But after the birth of her daughter, Irvine found herself in a situation uncannily similar to those of her pioneer forebears: isolated on a remote Colorado mesa, with a husband who was often gone, a child who was frequently and mysteriously ill, and a once remarkable life that was growing smaller and smaller.
After a case of postpartum depression so intense it resembled zoochosis, the madness of a trapped animal, Irvine began the process of coming back to the world and unearthing a deeper connection with her child. Over the years that followed, encounters with animals—wild and domestic, predator and prey—led her forward, from a horseback showdown with a mountain lion to a more intimate run-in with the misunderstood black widow. And searching for guidance, she looked to the women who came before her: the tough, complicated ancestors whose lives, Irvine learned, are a testament to the freedom, loneliness, and mythmaking of the American West.
Gloriously written and fiercely felt, Almost Animal places Amy Irvine among our greatest writers on the bonds between the human and natural worlds—including Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, and Wendell Berry—as well as contemporary chroniclers of the American West, from Cheryl Strayed to Tara Westover.
“A starting place for healing our upended selves, families, culture, world.”—CRAIG CHILDS, AUTHOR OF THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES
A ferocious, incandescent memoir about motherhood, liberation, and the natural world—following one woman’s journey to reclaim her wildest self.
A descendant of Utah’s earliest Mormon inhabitants, Amy Irvine spent her young adulthood rebelling against the patriarchy that was her inheritance. She sought adventure outdoors, climbing red rock, skiing backcountry powder, and fighting wildfires. She tested every limit imposed on her. But after the birth of her daughter, Irvine found herself in a situation uncannily similar to those of her pioneer forebears: isolated on a remote Colorado mesa, with a husband who was often gone, a child who was frequently and mysteriously ill, and a once remarkable life that was growing smaller and smaller.
After a case of postpartum depression so intense it resembled zoochosis, the madness of a trapped animal, Irvine began the process of coming back to the world and unearthing a deeper connection with her child. Over the years that followed, encounters with animals—wild and domestic, predator and prey—led her forward, from a horseback showdown with a mountain lion to a more intimate run-in with the misunderstood black widow. And searching for guidance, she looked to the women who came before her: the tough, complicated ancestors whose lives, Irvine learned, are a testament to the freedom, loneliness, and mythmaking of the American West.
Gloriously written and fiercely felt, Almost Animal places Amy Irvine among our greatest writers on the bonds between the human and natural worlds—including Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, and Wendell Berry—as well as contemporary chroniclers of the American West, from Cheryl Strayed to Tara Westover.
“Full throttle, full immersion, full honesty, all surrender.”—LESLIE JAMISON, AUTHOR OF THE EMPATHY EXAMS
“A starting place for healing our upended selves, families, culture, world.”—CRAIG CHILDS, AUTHOR OF THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES
A ferocious, incandescent memoir about motherhood, liberation, and ...
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About the author
Amy Irvine is a sixth-generation Utahn who descends from the first Mormons to occupy the West. Her memoir Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land received the Orion Book Award and the Colorado Book Award. Her second book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and during lockdown, Pam Houston and Irvine coauthored the epistolary Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place. Irvine’s essays have appeared in both The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best American Food Writing, as well as Orion, Outside, High Country News, Lit Hub, and Backpacker. She lives and writes on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado.
Amy Irvine is a sixth-generation Utahn who descends from the first Mormons to occupy the West. Her memoir Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land received the Orion Book Award and the Colorado Book Award. Her second book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist respo...
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