The Bear's Embrace
A True Story of a Grizzly Bear Attack
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4.3 • 15 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
On a sunny fall day in 1983, Patricia Van Tighem and her husband, Trevor Jang, were brutally attacked by a bear while hiking in the Canadian Rockies. Jang was severely hurt, but Van Tighem suffered even more serious, disfiguring injuries, and that she survived was a miracle.
A gifted writer, Van Tighem crafted a vivid and startling account of the attack. But her recovery was just as disturbing. Her numerous reconstructive surgeries were painful; her facial disfigurement, including the loss of an eye, isolated her; and the nightmares that haunted her carried their own psychological burden.
The Bear’s Embrace garnered much praise when it was first published in 2000. With honesty and eloquence, the book tells of the unpredictability of life, of bravery, terror, rage, and love, of what it means to look and feel different in a culture that values perfection. Deeply moving and often astonishing, The Bear’s Embrace is an inspiring story of human perseverance and selfknowledge.
Tragically, Van Tighem could no longer live with her pain and ended her life in 2005. In this new edition, her sister, Margaret Van Tighem, writes an affecting afterword remembering Patricia and her indomitable spirit and strength.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1983, Van Tighem and her husband, Trevor Janz, were brutally attacked by a bear while hiking in the Canadian Rockies. Janz was hurt severely his nose was broken, his face needed to be stitched and his jaw wired and Van Tighem suffered even more disfiguring injuries. An attractive blue-eyed blonde before the accident, Van Tighem had to come to grips with the fact the bear had destroyed most of the left side of her face, including her eye, cheekbone and scalp. Van Tighem's head was reconstructed through a series of surgeries taking place over the next decade. But she lost her eye, and bone grafts eventually had to be removed. In addition to suffering constant and intense pain, Van Tighem (who had been a nurse) fought depression, fatigue, social isolation and marital problems, culminating in multiple stays at a psychiatric hospital. Still, Van Tighem persevered and fought her way back to resume life with her husband and four children. Her writing is candid at times, painfully so. Even more disturbing than her surgeries and facial disfigurement are her nightmares of the bear attack, which continued to haunt her long after the incident. A nurse had once told Van Tighem an Indian legend: those who survive a bear attack absorb the power of the bear. Seventeen years later, Van Tighem has faced her nightmares by writing her story, culminating with a hopeful ending to her ordeal. Harrowing and vivid, Van Tighem's narrative raises questions of random events and meaning, the bravery of surviving an attack and the fortitude of facing life with a facial disfigurement, as well as the healing power of telling and owning one's story.
Customer Reviews
Amazing
Patricia Van Tighem is my mother and I still have not read this book entirely, I remember reading rough drafts from the recycling under her desk as she wrote, when I was just a kid. Don't know when I'll be brave enough to read it, but everyone tells me it really is amazing.
Daniel