When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice [Hardcover]

Terry Tempest Williams (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 10, 2012

The beloved author of Refuge returns with a work that explodes and startles, illuminates and celebrates

Terry Tempest Williams’s mother told her: “I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone.”

Readers of Williams’s iconic and unconventional memoir, Refuge, well remember that mother. She was one of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah who developed cancer as a result of the nuclear testing in nearby Nevada. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them.  

“They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound books . . . I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It too was empty . . . Shelf after shelf after shelf, all of my mother’s journals were blank.” What did Williams’s mother mean by that? In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals. When Women Were Birds is a kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question “What does it mean to have a voice?”

 

Note: blank pages are intentional.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The writing of Terry Tempest Williams is brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder. She’s one of those writers who changes peoples’ lives by encouraging attention and a slow, patient awakening.” —Anne Lamott, author of Imperfect Birds

“Much more than a brave and luminous memoir, When Women Were Birds is a set of blueprints for building one of America’s most impassioned and audacious writers, as well as a transcript of the moment when she stepped determinedly into the full power of her own voice. In Terry’s magical equation, rage + confusion + grief + accountability = love. At some point I realized I was reading every page twice trying to memorize each insight, each bit of hard-won wisdom. Then I realized I could keep it on my bedside table and read it every night.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

“Somehow, miraculously, Terry Tempest Williams has done it again: written a book that no one else could have, that tells the truth about our lives. If you want to understand how a writer finds her voice, read this gorgeous book.” —Sue Halpern, author of Can’t Remember What I Forgot

“When Women Were Birds is a wise and beautiful and intelligent book, written for the women, men, and children of our times. It vibrates with the earned honesty of a great soul. It is a gift, passed on to readers with the same spirit of love and generosity with which it was first given to the author by her mother. A remarkable journey, a remarkable story.” —Rick Bass, author of The Wild Marsh

“Williams narrates stories that range wide and run deep . . . Here, readers get a Terry Tempest Williams who is at the top of her game, the master of her craft . . . a gift from a writer who knows how to split the world open.” —Cheryl Strayed, Orion

About the Author

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge, and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books; First Edition edition (April 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374288976
• ISBN-13: 978-0374288976
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Natural History

More About the Author

She is the award-winning author of Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge & most recently Red - A Desert Reader. She lives in Castle Valley, Utah.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 77 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars When Women Were Birds, What were men? April 10, 2012

By Westword

Format:Hardcover

As a guy who loves women, I hesitated a bit before diving into this book. But once I did, there was no turning back. The idea of blank journal pages (and actual blank pages in the book) forced me to think about my role in silencing women and what I may have missed as a result. I also wondered about the self-silencing I've done in order to toe the line, be 'part of the team', or not make waves. The full spectrum of settings for Terry's use of voice, not using her voice, or having her voice squelched, misinterpreted, or ignored--from the most intimately personal to the halls of congress--suggest that this issue is multidimensional and epidemic. In fact,the current 'war on women' being staged during the republican primaries seems to be one more (hopefully, last ditch) effort to silence women as a means to more power and control. The depths to which our country seems to be plummeting (pulling the entire planet along with us) suggests that we try something new: let women run things. When Women Were Birds, what were men?(Trees? Rivers?) Letting women be birds once again may be our best hope.

60 of 70 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most powerful book in decades March 16, 2012

By David Seaman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it does it make a sound?

What does it mean to have a voice?

Terry Tempest Williams has delivered a testament with "When Women Were Birds." It's a tiny little book; very subtle; very polite; very powerful. This is non-fiction. This is not a memoir yet we travel through her life with her; this is not religious, though we are given a cat's eye view of the Mormon home; this is not a love story, though it overflows with love. This is an edict. This is a decree; a proclamation. Finally this is a manifesto. I have never come away from a book feeling so filled, fulfilled, fiercely powerful and fiercely empathetic. Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" is a spiritual book for which I've never seen or heard a harsh or even ambivalent review, professional or otherwise. "When Women Were Birds" is more powerful than that. (Williams quotes Campbell at one point. In fact, she quotes poets, philosophers and authors throughout). It falls to me now to summarize this book and then to urge you with the power of my words to buy this book. Yet I feel less than equipped to do this because my writing is to Terry Tempest Williams as Roseanne's singing is to Barbra Streisand or Audra McDonald.

See my problem?

Part of solving my problem is that I shall write in first person. An atypical book requires an atypical review: an essay is needed. Chapter one begins: "[Mother] was dying in the same way she was living, consciously. `I am leaving you all my journals but you must promise me that you will not look at them until after I am gone.' I gave her my word... A week later she died."There were three shelves of beautiful clothbound books. "The spines of each were perfectly aligned against the lip of the shelves.... I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It, too, was empty, as was the fourth, the fifth, the sixth--shelf after shelf after shelf, all my mother's journals were blank." Then there are twelve blank pages before Chapter Two begins.

What does it mean to have a voice?
"In Mormon culture, women are expected to do two things: keep a journal and bear children."

The physics of sound are such that three elements are required to make sound: something must create a vibration which creates a sound wave. The sound wave must then be picked up by a receiver, such as an ear or a recording device. If a tree falls in the woods and there is nothing there to hear it, there will be no sound at all. There are many loud voices in our world but none of them are heard. (All of my Mothers' journals are blank.) "When Women Were Birds" is, in part, a book about a woman's quest to find and define her voice. Ms Williams does this with a whisper. There is no blame; the experienced pain has been weighed, applied as a spiritual lesson and expressed so as to benefit our experience. Alice Parker once said, "To be certain that someone will listen you must sing softly with intensity." This is just her voice, years in the making, using our own history and human experience to suggest the ways in which we can find our own voice.

Where women are concerned, and in Williams' case, a Mormon woman, finding her voice was a quest because All of her mothers' journals were blank; This was a message, of some kind, directly from her mother to her. All of the fifty-four variations on voice speak of just about any issue. We join Williams in jail, incarcerated but still human. We join her as the victim of a violent crime. Still, we move on. We join her in the choice to break from Orthodoxy by taking birth control, and the pain that this choice would bring. We join her in serious, life threatening illness, the downs within a four decade marriage, the fight against the system and a male dominated board room. All of these elements of life lead to the voice.

What does it mean to have a voice?

Williams writes, `In my remaining days in the Sawtooths I wanted to tell someone, anyone, what had happened. I wanted to speak. I wanted to say how scared I was, how I was almost murdered... and it wasn't my fault, but I didn't believe it. I believed it was my fault. I betrayed my instincts. My body tried to warn me. The owl tried to warn me. But I ignored them all and walked past my intuition. When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt."

When one woman doesn't speak, another woman gets hurt. This is something to which we can all connect. Men and women alike, though most of us are intruded upon in regard to sexual abuse, but we all know what it means to stifle our own voice as we weigh the horror of what has occurred with the horror of what talking about it will be; we will relive the trauma and we will place ourselves and our humiliation upon a stage, lit brightly enough so that we will have no shadow and the opinions and voices of anyone who chooses can be sent our way, like a flaming arrow. This is why we battle the age old fear of using our voice in this manner. And Terry Tempest Williams is right: When one woman [or child or man] doesn't speak, another woman [or child or man] gets hurt. Williams takes responsibility for her own actions and does not judge those of us who made the same choice (and statistically that's one out of five of us) though as we think about her choice, we feel a little less alone in our own place. This is possible only because Williams choice, at last, to use her own voice.

What does it mean to have a voice?

It unites us it breaks down the walls between us; it allows us to see inside the world of another culture (it does not have to be the Mormons); it forces us to think about our own voice while respecting the voices of others. But there is no book that will help you understand your voice. You will need to take your own journey. And as a 25 year old you looked ahead at your life: the world was a blank page of possibility (just like her mother's journals) but at 25 we do not realize how quickly that life and that page will fill itself. Whether you are fifteen years old and looking ahead or sixty five and looking back, "When Women Were Birds" is a book that you must read. It's almost an obligation as a member of the race, a member of our country, a member of your gender, a member of your family and a piece of the chain of life that extends from before we know in our past all the way into the future of what is a mystery.

Our voice is important because it's a piece of the mystery that connects us. We are part of a chain of life that seeks to improve the quality of life for those who are in their present. Our voices are our legacy to them. Our obligation to our children, whether we chose to have our own or not: the unknown child who swings in the park on your street is also your child.

See? I promised you that I didn't have the words to convey the message behind this remarkable book. In part that is because each of us will have a different message. It is my prayer that I was able to convey the importance of this book so that you will read it yourself because why take my word for it? Read her words yourself. I choose to use my voice to encourage you to experience an emotional and spiritual journey more important than any of your life. This journey includes the way that her book turn into a flip book where a single bird approaches you then flies away over the two hundred pages; it includes many blank pages throughout for us to fill ourselves. These tools are there to make us stop and slowly ponder. We cannot find our voice or listen to the voice of others when we are moving as fast as our lives make us believe we need to move. We will not find the voice of God in heavy traffic.

James Lapin and Stephen Sondheim opened their musical, "Sunday In The Park With George" with these words and remarkable music, "White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge: bring order to the whole. Through design. Composition. Balance, Light, and harmony." And a Pulitzer Prize winning musical blooms like a flower beneath us.

Williams uses her voice both literally and as a metaphor. I was reminded of an important piece by the quintessential voice, Robert Frost, in his poem, "Choose Something Like a Star." "And steadfast as Keats "Eremite'/ Not even stopping from its sphere / It asks a little of us here / it asks of us a certain height / So when at times the mob is swayed/ to carry praise or blame too far / we may choose something like a star / to stay our minds on / and be staid."

Sometimes the only way to find our voice is to remain perfectly silent and listen to the voice of others: our parents, our grandparents, our children, the wind, the birds, the very voice of God. To do so, one must be very silent, still; /one must be staid. And then one can hear the multitudes of voices and be able to add ours to it. It won't be with trumpets blaring and canons blasting, but rather with a whisper. I would like nothing more than to learn that Terry Tempest Williams' book, "When Women Were Birds" is as big as Stephen King's "Carrie", Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" or Jacqueline Suzanne's "Valley of The Dolls." This would mean that so many people will have lived the experience that I did. Should that not happen, it was with full sincerity and gratitude that I offer my thanks to Terry Tempest Williams as her book, with its power to change the world, has certainly changed mine. Read more ›

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Get to Know Williams Before Reading This Memoir April 3, 2012

By litaddiction VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

"In Mormon culture, women are expected to do two things: keep a journal and bear children. Both gestures are a participatory bow to the past and the future."

So what did it mean when Williams -- a writer, "in love with words" -- took custody of her mother's 35 journals upon her death ... and found them all completely empty? Williams reels from the discovery ("her blank journals became a second death"), and 24 years later, processes it via vignettes here.

I should have loved this book. I'm the age of the author and of her mother when she died. My own mother recently died. I love explorations of voice and stillness, I love narratives structured as vignettes (e.g. Touch, Einstein's Dreams, The Incident Report). So I began slowly, savoring the passages and giving them time to arrange themselves. When little seemed to accumulate, I read them without breaks.

In the end, I liked the book more than loved it. There's evocative language; family, feminism and nature; being heard and being silenced. But while I was interested enough to finish, I never much grew to understand or care about Williams. I suspect readers already familiar with her (e.g. via Refuge) will have a much different, better reading experience. Perhaps I'll read that, and come back to this in a year.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Mormon February 29, 2012

By Yours Truly VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

More than two decades have passed since Terry Tempest Williams wrote her master work, Refuge, about her mother's death from cancer and the movements of the Great Salt Lake. As a mature woman, she revisits the themes that have shaped her writing: women's connections with one another, her fascination with birds that began with one grandmother's tutelage, her long marriage to a fellow Mormon reprobate, the ways in which we parent and nurture, her exploration of the world's broken and sacred places, the Utah wilderness, danger, mortality.

This work, begun with the gift of her mother's journals, which Terry opened after she died, is about claiming one's voice and sustaining it. It is sparse, poetic, and, at times, mystical. I loved it! She is a prophet for our times.

26 of 34 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Didn't Like It Enough to Love It Nor Dislike It Enough to Hate It March 19, 2012

By Satia Renee VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams begins with the author discovering that the fifty-four journals her mother collected in her lifetime, bequeathed to the author when her mother was dying, are all blank. Pages and pages of white, empty, wordless journals.

From here, Williams begins a poetic meditation on the meaning of words, of voice, of what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and upon what it means that her mother collected these blank books, left these books blank, and then made a point of leaving them to her daughter. There is an incantatory quality to the text, which is strongest when it is a meditative memoir, weaving from moment to moment, leaning heavily on metaphor in searching for meaning.

Unfortunately, there are parts of the memoir which are less meditative and feel almost dumped into the book. The tone is wrong, evocatively different from the over-riding theme. What starts as a personal reflection strives to become universal with Williams interjecting ecological and social issues. Because they are not infused into the text, not given a tighter context, the connections are loose and I felt left adrift by the promise the author made in the first few chapters. Although she does return to the more poetic even mysterious incantatory rhetoric, the faith I had was lost. It was as if she promised to fill the pages of her mother's journals and decided to leave them blank and then invited me to read over her shoulder as she wrote.

Perhaps that is her intention, to offer so many different "voices" that the reader is bound to find one they like.... I think that the author would have done herself and the idea a greater service if she had waited, written more, many more, too many more variations so that when it came time to find the fifty-four she would commit to producing a single volume of text, she would have been able to maintain an emotional and spiritual integrity which this book simply lacks. Read more ›