How to Survive a Bear Attack: A Memoir
by Claire Cameron
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In this debut memoir from the bestselling author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event--a predatory bear attack.
When Claire Cameron was nine years old, her father told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she overcame her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed in a rare predatory black bear attack in the park--an event that shocked and haunted Claire.
Years later, with children of her own, Cameron was diagnosed with the same kind of deadly skin cancer as her father. Caught in a second wave of grief, she was told by her doctor, "the ideal exposure to UV light is none." No longer able to venture into the wilderness as she once had, she again became obsessed with the bear attack in Algonquin Park. How could terror rip through such a beautiful place? Could she separate truth from fiction? She headed north to investigate.
Seamlessly weaving together nature writing with true crime investigation in this unflinching account of recovery, How to Survive a Bear Attack is at once an intimate portrait of an extraordinary animal, a bracing chronicle of pain, obsession, and love, and a profoundly moving exploration of how we can understand and survive the wildness that lives inside us.
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Book Details
- ISBN
- 9781039056350
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Authors
- Claire Cameron
- Publisher
- Knopf Canada
- Published Date
- March 25, 2025
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 304
- Physical Info
- 1.1 in H x 8.43 in L x 5.51 in W (0.5 lb)
Great read!
Written by an outdoorswoman who loves black bears, this memoir is an attempt to better understand these fascinating creatures by re-telling in a compelling manner the true story of a black bear that attacked and killed a couple in Algonquin Park. The author wants to better understand why the black bear did what it did. The black bear is also a metaphor for the health challenges the author is facing. It is a good read, and I learned more about black bears in the process. The structure made for a compelling read, as if one were reading a mystery novel.
This was an interesting novel that explores surviving a cancer diagnosis from an avid hiker. As bears are making their way towards suburban areas, I found the information about their hibernation, mating, and food intake very interesting . The book reads like fiction and her “cancer attack” weaves seamlessly into her story.
expected much moreseemed like a therapy session for the author( sorry about your disease )title is misleading ( no tips on bear survival) and the ending is quite obtuse.I wanted to like this book...didn't..sorry
I didn't want this book to end. It's more than a memoir, more than a nature story. It's a beautiful remembrance of a father, a little girl missing her father, and the same woman as a mother - now with children of her own - living with a scary diagnosis. At the same time, she goes back to take a closer look at a 1991 bear attack in a national park in Canada, a place she knows well from her own time as a guide there. It's hard to do justice to this special book. I highly recommend it!
