The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival [Hardcover]

Patricia Van Tighem (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2001

An extraordinary story of survival and recovery by a woman who was attacked by a grizzly bear.

On a sunny fall day in 1983, Patricia Van Tighem and her husband, Trevor, began a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies with a two-thousand-foot climb through rocks and forest. The next morning, in a landscape dusted by snow, they crossed paths with a grizzly bear–and their lives were forever changed.

That Van Tighem survived at all is a miracle, and her account of the attack is vivid and startling. But her recovery was just as disturbing: Her numerous reconstructive surgeries were painful; her facial
disfigurement isolated her; and the nightmares that haunted her carried their own psychological burden. Yet she was eventually able to accept her unthinkable experiences, and to put her life back together as a survivor, a wife, and a mother.

With honesty and eloquence, The Bear’s Embrace tells of the unpredictability of life, of bravery, terror, rage and love, of what it means to look and feel different in a culture that values perfection. Uncommonly affecting, often astonishing, The Bear’s Embrace is an inspiring story of human
perseverance and self-knowledge.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1983, Van Tighem and her husband, Trevor Janz, were brutally attacked by a bear while hiking in the Canadian Rockies. Janz was hurt severely his nose was broken, his face needed to be stitched and his jaw wired and Van Tighem suffered even more disfiguring injuries. An attractive blue-eyed blonde before the accident, Van Tighem had to come to grips with the fact the bear had destroyed most of the left side of her face, including her eye, cheekbone and scalp. Van Tighem's head was reconstructed through a series of surgeries taking place over the next decade. But she lost her eye, and bone grafts eventually had to be removed. In addition to suffering constant and intense pain, Van Tighem (who had been a nurse) fought depression, fatigue, social isolation and marital problems, culminating in multiple stays at a psychiatric hospital. Still, Van Tighem persevered and fought her way back to resume life with her husband and four children. Her writing is candid at times, painfully so. Even more disturbing than her surgeries and facial disfigurement are her nightmares of the bear attack, which continued to haunt her long after the incident. A nurse had once told Van Tighem an Indian legend: those who survive a bear attack absorb the power of the bear. Seventeen years later, Van Tighem has faced her nightmares by writing her story, culminating with a hopeful ending to her ordeal. Harrowing and vivid, Van Tighem's narrative raises questions of random events and meaning, the bravery of surviving an attack and the fortitude of facing life with a facial disfigurement, as well as the healing power of telling and owning one's story.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Never make eye contact with a grizzly, especially one that has chased you up a tree. Van Tighem did and her life was radically changed. A chance encounter with a bear on a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies forever altered her hopes and expectations and those of her medical-student husband. Survival, pure and simple, became the main objective of this young couple, whose lives up to that point had been filled with one success after another. This is the author's story of her struggle to overcome the physical and mental scars from the incident. Twenty-four at the time of the attack, she spent the next 18 years coping with trauma and pain, and learning to live with her deformities in a world that prizes perfection and beauty. Though few of us may ever live through anything as dire as this ordeal, the author's experiences may help young readers put their own problems in better perspective.

Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st Us Edition edition (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375421319
• ISBN-13: 978-0375421310
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,235,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rest in peace, dear lady, December 30, 2005

By 

cynicalgirl (Richmond, VA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

First, the book. It is sometimes hard going to read about such a horrific experience as a grizzly bear attack and its excruciating aftermath, but believe me, it is worth it. This is a book that will exhaust your emotions, it will make you FEEL and marvel at how much one human being can endure. It will do that, unless you are a relatively shallow human being, uninterested in the human condition and emotions, as some of the reviewers of this book are. So "The Bear's Embrace" has "very little action", is "boring" and describes "pointless suffering"? Oh, please God help me! A story about a grizzly bear attack and the frantic attempts to save the victims has "very little action"? A woman's attempt to cope with the disfigurement of her face and the ensuing torture of constant pain and infection is "boring"? Her severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, her forever-changed relationship with her husband, their Down's syndrome baby, the loss of an eye, the incredible pain from her injuries and infection that just seemed to go on and on is "POINTLESS SUFFERING"? Well, let me tell you something. NO suffering is "pointless". You poor readers, having to read such a "boring" book; no murders or sex or car explosions, WAAAHHH! This is an incredible book about an incredible quirk of fate that changes a woman's life forever; it is a tale of endurance and survival that will move you deeply. You wonder "how could anybody STAND this"? Ms. Tighem did...for a long time. But it got to a point where she simply could stand no more. She committed suicide on Dec. 17, 2005. She was 47. I hope that she is now at peace, without any pain at last. She was a courageous, remarkable woman...rest in peace, dear lady.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A woman strong as a bear., September 21, 2001

By 

Raisin Mountaineer "raisinmountaineer" (Flagstaff, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

Patricia Van Tighem was an ordinary person living a contented life, when a pleasant hike became a years-long struggle for health, for her relationships, and for her sanity.

There are other books about bear attacks, but this one examines the long-term aftermath of serious injury, in a way that can apply to anyone who has lost their health, their good looks and/or their equilibrium in a bad car wreck, an assault, or other sudden trauma.

The damage done to her body happened in seconds. The struggle to save her life took hours. Her road after that toward physical, emotional and mental healing has taken almost two decades, is still continuing, and is what makes this book so compelling. She offers no easy answers or triumphant happy ending, and she seems all the more real for it.

Ms. Van Tighem's experience teaches that healing comes through going ahead and living life, even while struggling. During extreme physical and mental trials, living with chronic pain and battling depression, she has raised a family, organized support groups for those with disfiguring injuries, and lobbied for improvements in the Canadian mental health care system.

Her husband, who was also injured badly in the attack, has maintained their marriage, supported her throughout her struggles, and is as much a part of this record of recovery as she is.

As for bears, this one was real, and its shadow looms large over the book and over all of us who love the high places where bears live. But one need not know bear country or bears to appreciate this woman's journey.

There is a legend that a person who is injured by a bear receives the bear's strength; Patricia Van Tighem, despite her protestations to the contrary, is as fiercely strong as a grizzly.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to PTSD, June 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

"The Bear's Embrace" is written by a woman who was hiking with her husband when they were attacked by a bear. Though both seriously wounded, they made it out alive and began the long road back to recovery. Both have facial scarring, but hers are much more severe, causing years of pain and permanent disfigurement.

Ironically, the problem one reviewer had with: "hoping for some kind of information about how people actually cope with such devastating horror in their lives, but there was nothing here, just page after page of seemingly pointless suffering without redemption or relief" is exactly how living with PTSD is like. It's extremely difficult to cope with, which is why it can break up families/friendships. As someone who has PTSD, I was able to empathize with almost everything with the author was talking about.

The writing can be emotionally raw and the constant emotional turmoil Ms.Van Tighem goes through is captured well. Though she's able to pull herself up for small periods, at one point starting a support group for those having facial disfigurements, most of the book is about her trying to cope with her disfigurement and depression. Only at the end is she able to start climbing out of the pit she is in, when she was finally diagnosed with PTSD after 20 years.

If you'd like to get a glimpse of how badly PTSD can affect someone, read this book. It does an excellent job of showing the difficulties a PTSD victim has in reintegrating themselves back into everyday life as well as the daily struggles just to live one day at a time.