A Slender Thread : Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis [Hardcover]

Diane Ackerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 17, 1996

his astonishing book by the prizewinning, bestselling author of A Natural History of the Senses reveals Ackerman's parallel lives as an observer of the wildlife in her garden and as a telephone crisis counselor. "(Ackerman) brings a luminous and illuminating combination of sensuality, science, and speculation to whatever she considers."--San Francisco Examiner.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Diane Ackerman has generally turned her unusual sensitivity to consideration of the natural world and the human experience of it. In A Slender Thread, she journeys down a vastly different road, describing her involvement with a telephone crisis center in the college town where she lives. The callers want her to talk them out of suicide, and their fear and sadness is a weight she at first has trouble bearing gracefully.

"It's no bother. That's why we're here," I say, trying not to sound dutiful or perfunctory. I want him to stay calm, but I also want him to feel comfortable about calling. As usual, I wish I had more control over my voice, wish I could sculpt its nuances so that, regardless of the exact words I used, the tone would tell a caller like this one, You're not alone. We're here to help you, or, if help is impossible, at least to understand. I think it's possible to insinuate your emotions into your voice wholeheartedly like that, to speak sentences charged with pure emotion, as if they were part of an opera in which indecipherable words float on waves of heart-stirring and meaningful music. I just can't figure out how best to do it.

Ackerman explores human despair as she would a magnificent cavern, always moving toward the light of understanding. Highly recommended.

From Publishers Weekly

Both a sensuous road map through depression, despair and loss of self, and a homage to the wonder, multiplicity and rejuvenating power of nature, this new book from the author of A Natural History of the Senses is, quite simply, wonderful. Ackerman has worked for years as a counselor at a suicide prevention and crisis center in her hometown in upstate New York. She describes her work as that of a "sorrow ranger." The slender thread of the title refers to the phone wires that reach invisibly between Ackerman and the frightened, hopeless, often desperate person at the other end and to the strength that keeps us going through the hard times. Her writing can charm ("summer is like a new philosophy in the air, and everyone has heard about it"), but it doesn't scant her own despair, making this her most personal book to date. So depressed she forces herself to cross-country ski on her local golf course, Ackerman is pulled back on track by the Canadian geese honking overhead. Thoughts and subjects move and trail into each other here, sometimes through anecdote, sometimes through historical passages, sometimes through densely layered or near stream-of-consciousness prose. From "cutters" (self-mutilators) to the act of bathing, from captive lions to squirrels in her backyard, from a biking trip through the Finger Lakes to a dying Luna moth beside the road, Ackerman leads the reader on a respectful, deeply emotional, life-affirming journey. 35,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 305 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (December 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679448772
• ISBN-13: 978-0679448778
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,164,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Ackerman is the acclaimed author of "A Natural History of the Senses," the bestselling "The Zookeeper's Wife," "Dawn Light," and many other books. She lives in Ithaca, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully crafted and moving, May 28, 2000

By 

Summer B. Frace (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis (Paperback)

Perhaps my interest in psychology, wildlife and science make me a bit biased here, but I adore this book. It is one of those that I will continuously return to. I wasn't planning on reviewing this book, but I was compelled by the one star reviews that complained about Ackerman's backyard observations. Perhaps they missed the "slender thread" (forgive the play on words) but it was about so much more than a few squirrels and birds. It is difficult to explain in words, but the balance between the heartache in the book and Ackerman's personal experiences created an amazing and comforting feeling that I enjoyed each time I picked up the book. I do not recommend this book as a introduction to this author, but those who already love Ackerman's style will delight in it. Her style is very personal and her books often have personal anecdotes and stories which I very much enjoy, but if that sort of thing isn't for you, you may not enjoy this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beauty Continues, February 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: A Slender Thread : Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis (Hardcover)

In reading A SLENDER THREAD, something amazing happened: my already worshipful esteem for Ms. Ackerman increased dramatically. A fan from the first words of the bestselling A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES, I didn't think it possible for Ms. Ackerman's boundless curiosity and breathtakingly poetic prose to get any better. But in this new book, the metaphors and the subjects they describe are indeed large as life. After donating a laptop computer to her local crisis prevention chapter, Ms. Ackerman is lured into giving a speech to its staff, and ultimately becomes a staff-member herself, as a volunteer answering phones for the suicide prevention hotline. Her oddessey of aiding those in distress is beautifully undertaken and even more beautifully described. At first, the seemingly fearless Ackerman (who has a private pilot's license, scuba dives, is an accomplished horsewoman, and has even sexed crocodiles) is nervous about her abilities at crisis intervention. After the several weeks of training, she still feels apprehensive about responding to callers' crises. But like everything else in the author's incomparable ouevre, life beckons and blazes tantalizingly, and she handles adeptly the callers on the other end of that slender thread. Some people are mired in bogs of depression, others struggling with abusive relationships, while a few are at the brink of suicide. In the stunning climax, Ackerman, from her isolated perch at Suicide Prevention's offices, rescues two desperate souls in a single evening: a teen only seconds from a fatal leap, and a frequent caller whom Ackerman finally realizes from faint clues has already ingested a potentially fatal dose of pills. In reading this late chapter, one's pulse races as frantically as the author's. But in between her shifts, Ackerman celebrates in her typically effervescent way, many of nature's splendors. From weekend bicycle rides around Upstate New York's Finger Lakes region, a two-year study of her backyard squirrels, and a rollicking full moon cross country skiing trek to the strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," among other delightful rituals. Ackerman is an impassioned participant in all of life's rich pageants. (And this sentence, quiet as it is, jolts one out of blind admiration for this intrepid soul: "Some of our counselors, like me, are ones who survived, people who lived to see their lives turn around, and who relish life more because they came so close to losing it.") Yes, a joyous life, but not without its share of troubles. Fortunately, the worst our fiercely talented explorer experiences in these pages are a couple of broken toes. One from a misstep on a neighbor's porch, the other a casualty of her own wheelchair. In A SLENDER THREAD Diane Ackerman has outdone herself. She has turned her poetically tuned naturalist's curiosity to our own fragile species, and composed an elegant song of survival, endurance, and brilliant life

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about more than you think, May 11, 2000

By 

Janine Smith (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis (Paperback)

Not just an account of Ackerman's volunteer work on a suicide hotline. Like all of her books, it leads to connections and meditations on many subjects. Sit back, relax, and enjoy where this book meanders.