Books & Books and Miami Book Fair present…

An Evening with Catherine Raven

In conversation with Bethanne Patrick

Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship

(Spiegel & Grau, $28)

Wednesday, July 21, 7 PM ET

LIVE via Crowdcast

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An unforgettable memoir about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox.

When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park. Then one day she realized that the mangy-looking fox she’d seen on her property was now showing up every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends. From the fox, she learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss–and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and connection as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings–each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.

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About the Author:

Catherine Raven received her PhD in biology from Montana State University and is a former National Park Ranger at Glacier, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Voyagers, and Yellowstone National Parks. Her natural history essays have appeared in American Scientist, Journal of American Mensa, and Montana Magazine. She is currently a professor at South University in Savannah, Georgia.

About the Moderator:

Bethanne Patrick is a freelance literary critic whose work appears frequently in The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Boston Globe, on NPR Books, and many others. She is First Vice President and Programs Committee Chair of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and a Board member of 1455 Literary Arts. A noted moderator and interviewer, Patrick has acted as interlocutor for everyone from Martha Stewart to Jodi Picoult to Min Jin Lee to Margaret Atwood to Buzz Aldrin and more. She has authored two books for National Geographic and edited an anthology, “The Books That Changed My Life.” Bethanne Patrick is a graduate of Smith College, earned her master’s in English from The University of Virginia, and lives in Northern Virginia with her family — and too many books.