- Book Review -

"I Found my Tribe" by Ruth Fitzmaurice caught my imagination because this is a phrase that I often hear when adults talk about friendship groups and finding like-minded people.  And the theme of wild swimming appealed to me as I like to swim outdoors in places that are beautiful.  

This story is a truly tragic one of a woman who loses her husband to Motor Neuron Disease when she is in her early 30's and has five young children.  She is a woman who is passionate and demonstrative in every moment of the book.  If she is not painting her house in primary colours, racing around the supermarket with her children grabbing bags of crisps and biscuits off the shelves, she is talking to her special tree, running along cliff tops or packing her whole family off to the other side of the world to make the most of every moment.  

I read the book twice, once last summer and I read it again for this book review.  It has left me feeling emotional both times.  The book races along, switching timelines, telling anecdotes of her hectic life interwoven with glimpses into the emotional release she gets from running to survive and swimming in the sea to feel truly free.  Neither of these activities can take her daily life struggles away and nor can her friends take her pain so you are left with a real-life story of a passionate woman fighting to retain her sense of self under circumstances that are far from being a fairy tale.  
Throughout the book, you get the feeling that if she stops, she will crumble, so she reminds you at every juncture of exactly that.  She rages against the unfairness of her situation and is determined to give her children a life of memories, chaos and love.  Even her decision to have another child, when her husband's condition is deteriorating significantly, is one born out of a desire to create and to fill her world and block out the deafening noise of her situation.  
- Deirdre Bowley -
Fresh Air Reads Contributor