August Roads tells two stories of struggle and redemption set against the remote wilds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and along the historical grace of the Natchez Trace ParkwayIn Anwar, Gillam Wheaton Taylor-Wheat to his friends-is an urban professional who becomes embroiled in the serpentine maneuverings of politics in Washington D.C. Struggling to reconcile success with happiness, he becomes obsessed with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge during the 2000 presidential campaigns of Al Gore and George W. Bush. He is lured north, toward a place so far outside of his experience that "he couldn't even visualize it." His journey into the unknown reveals fundamental truths, but leaves him balanced precariously between life and death.In The Trace, Charles Bear Winston is in a race against time to resolve the pain and tragedy of his life. As his body fails him, he journeys with his aging mother along the Natchez Trace Parkway, an historic route that winds gracefully for almost 450 miles from the cypress swamps of Mississippi to the forested hills of Tennessee, passing the birth places of Elvis Presley and Oprah Winfrey as well as ancient Indian mounds and Civil War battle sites. He reconnects with the forests and the fields, the history and the wildlife, as he urgently searches for the meaning of home. But does he have enough time?Kirk Ward Robinson has been to the places he describes in August Roads. He has been startled and terrified by a grizzly bear in the bush, smelled its fetid breath up close. He has wandered through the ice fogs of the northern latitudes, has gazed down upon the vast splendor of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from a high mountain pass, and has bicycled the length of the Natchez Trace Parkway in both directions, almost 900 miles through a narrow corridor of natural and human history. His books, articles and stories read with the authenticity of true experience, revealing the essential importance of wild and special places in America.
