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Book Review

‘When Women Were Birds’ by Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams presents meditation on her mother, women, nature, and family

By Judy Bolton Fasman

 |  Globe Correspondent  

  April 12, 2012

Terry Tempest Williams’s earlier memoir, “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place,’’ interweaved the story of her mother’s terminal cancer with the record shattering rising of the Great Salt Lake. When she died Williams’ mother left her six blank journals. In “When Women Were Birds’’ Williams presents a lyrical and elliptical meditation on women, nature, and family. But the book is also part mystery. Williams wrestles with the essence of her legacy: What was her mother trying to say?

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