When Canadian author Claire Cameron’s How to Survive a Bear Attack appeared in my mailbox, I expected to be in for a treat. Her Substack newsletter Books I Love provides excellent recommendations and she’s an advocate of the short book (see the comments HERE for a great list).
Late Friday afternoon is my favorite time to start a new book because it lends a sense of near-term mystery. When I’m into a new book on a Friday evening, the routine goes to seed—parenting duties are lightly held, bedtime milestones encouraged from the sofa.
In How to Survive a Bear Attack, Cameron weaves together:
Her Beowulf-reciting, too-tall-for-a-sports-car father’s diagnosis and death from a rare melanoma (when she is 9)
Her diagnosis with the same cancer at age 45
The 1991 timeline of a black bear waking up from hibernation (I learned this is called torpor) to its attack of two campers in Canada’s Algonquin Park, a place Cameron knows well from working as a canoe guide there
Cameron re-investigates the attack, interviews first responders, park officials, and bear attack survivors. She visits the campsite where it happened.
Early that Friday night, I read, on page 16:
“Quietly, my bangs went about ruining everything.” - Claire Cameron, How to Survive a Bear Attack
Oh. So this is what I’m doing tonight. The shift. In a book about deadly threats, the particular mortification of being a nine-year-old girl with bangs pinned me to the sofa. (It’s possible I hold the record for most cowlicks on one head.)
What Cameron offers in How to Survive is compelling and hard to capture in my endorsement. It’s not straight memoir, but linked investigations of significant events — with a side of the bear’s point of view. My favorite kind of writer disappears from the work, leaving me alone with their story on the page. Claire Cameron delivers. Not a spoiler, but I need get no closer to a bear attack than her reporting.
One blurb describes it as a ‘braided love story,’ another “a meditation on the force of nature.” Yes to both. How to Survive a Bear Attack is smart, nuanced, and captivating. It took over my weekend in the best way. Highly recommend.
Happy reading!
Ooh thanks for the recommendation of both the book and Claire's Substack!! Always looking for great reads. <3
This is so lovely! Thank you so much for giving it your time.