Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots, by DJ Lee, starts with a well-used premise in this kind of memoir: I will explore my family history and physical place in the world, and better understand myself, and ultimately, everything.
Lee takes this route but is very honest about the limitations of this pursuit. She wants to understand her grandmother's complex life, her mother's emotional detachment, and her own yearnings, all against the backdrop of their family connection to the Bitteroot Mountains.
She does in fact learn a great deal about the traumas inflicted on women (in the wilderness) that are passed down from mother to daughter. Grandmother, mother, and author are both uplifted and scarred by life in the Bitteroots.
Ultimately Lee is a sophisticated enough thinker and a skilled enough writer to know that we can never understand a person in total no matter how many journals she reads or trails she hikes. Mystery remains in the heart of all of us.
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