powered by Crowdcast
June 16, 2020

Mary Morris

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes MARY MORRIS—author of the classic travelogue Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone—for a discussion of her latest memoir All the Way to the Tigers. She will be joined in conversation by author CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE, author of the bestselling novel Orphan Train.

Details

In February 2008 a casual afternoon of ice skating derailed the trip of a lifetime. Mary Morris was on the verge of a well-earned sabbatical, but instead she endured three months in a wheelchair, two surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation. On Easter Sunday, when she was supposed to be in Morocco, Morris was instead lying on the sofa reading Death in Venice, casting her eyes over these words again and again: "He would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers." Disaster shifted to possibility and Morris made a decision. When she was well enough to walk again (and her doctor wasn't sure she ever would), she would go "all the way to the tigers."

So begins a three-year odyssey that takes Morris to India in search of the world's most elusive apex predator. Her first lesson: don't look for a tiger because you won't find it—you look for signs of a tiger. And all unseen tigers, hiding in the bush, are referred to as "she." Morris connects deeply with these magnificent and highly endangered animals, and her weeks on tiger safari also afford a new understanding of herself.

Written in over a hundred short chapters, All the Way to the Tigers offers an elegiac, wry, and wise look at a woman on the road and the glorious, elusive creature she seeks.

About Author(s)

Mary Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels Gateway to the Moon, The Jazz PalaceA Mother's Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone. Morris is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Christina Baker Kline is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The ExilesOrphan Train, and A Piece of the World. Her novels have received the New England Prize for Fiction, the Maine Literary Award, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award, among other prizes, and have been chosen by hundreds of communities, universities and schools as “One Book, One Read” selections. Her other writing has appeared in publications such as the New York Times and the NYT Book ReviewThe Boston GlobeThe San Francisco ChronicleLitHubPsychology Today, and Salon.