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Travelling with Ghosts
On sale
23rd February 2017
Price: £19.99
In the summer of 2002, Shannon Leone Fowler, a twenty-eight-year-old marine biologist, was backpacking with her Australian fiancé Sean in Thailand. They were planning to return to Australia after their excursion to Koh Pha Ngan, but their plans were tragically derailed when a box jellyfish – the most venomous animal in the world – wrapped around Sean’s leg, stinging and killing him in minutes as Shannon helplessly watched. Rejecting the Thai authorities attempt to label the death ‘drunk drowning,’ Shannon ferried his body home to his stunned family – a family to which she suddenly no longer belonged.
Shattered and untethered, Shannon set out on a journey to make sense of her loss. From Oswiecim, Poland (the site of Auschwitz) to war-torn Israel, shelled-out Bosnia, poverty-stricken Romania, and finally to Barcelona, where she first met Sean years before, Shannon charts a path through sorrow towards recovery.
Read by Rachel Dulude
(p) 2017 Tantor
Shattered and untethered, Shannon set out on a journey to make sense of her loss. From Oswiecim, Poland (the site of Auschwitz) to war-torn Israel, shelled-out Bosnia, poverty-stricken Romania, and finally to Barcelona, where she first met Sean years before, Shannon charts a path through sorrow towards recovery.
Read by Rachel Dulude
(p) 2017 Tantor
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Reviews
[Fowler's] various journeys - through grief, through areas of the world few experience, and through memories of adventures that made her who she was and Sean who he was -- are movingly and honestly told . . . Her story -- rich, unblinking and adroitly told -- is one of strength, of getting past but not getting over. Few would choose the approach Fowler took to kick-start healing. But hers is a thought-provoking journey that she generously shares
A cross between H is for Hawk and Wild, this beautifully written tale follows Fowler's travels through Eastern Europe after her fiance was killed by a jellyfish
Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Fowler makes us feel that a hero's journey is our only hope for surviving grief. Traveling with Ghosts is a brave and necessary record of love, as beautiful as it is heart-breaking
[Fowler] is a writer who is a wonder at conveying pain amid a rush of emotions. She is a wise writer, too, understanding the nature of danger, confronting it, which can sometimes leave one person unscathed and another destroyed . . . [Fowler] epitomizes Ernest Hemingway's classic definition of courage: grace under pressure
Fowler's extraordinary rendering of her fiance's sudden death is both fearless and intimate, shot through with the kind of honesty that makes you wonder at the world: its unexpected venom and incipient beauty.
Gloriously rendered, beautifully written, but utterly devastating ... an intimate and inspiring experience . . . balm to the soul, as well as being a necessary witness account of the blackest depths of grief
Heartbreaking but beautiful, Traveling With Ghosts is the story of Shannon Leone Fowler's travels around the world after her fiancé's unexpected death. She brings us along as she drifts from one place to the next, weaving in memories from their time together as well. As much as this is a tale of grief and loss, it's one of love, too.
[A] courageous memoir of love and loss... compelling.
A rich and absorbing memoir that shows the reader what it feels like to lose your future in a matter of seconds in a faraway land . . . Shannon learns to travel on, to get back in the ocean and to build a new life
A heartbreaking story about the randomness of tragedy told with great courage and tenacity
A compelling and poignant book about love, grief, and recovery
This book is a heartbreaker, but so beautiful, both haunted and haunting. I've never read anything quite like it
A moving account ... This is a nicely written and informative journey on the path to healing
A courageous and finely crafted account soaked in tears of love and loss
[An] intensely personal and appealing memoir . . . Bring along a world map, set aside everything you know about healing from heartbreaking loss, and have yourself an unforgettable read
A searing memoir [that] celebrates a life cut short, a love never given a chance to grow, and a process of recovery bravely illustrating that while life after tragedy goes on, the chilly fingers of grief touch us in a way that mark us forever
Fowler has turned her devastating, beautiful, honest, and personal story into something universal. Akin to Cheryl Strayed's Wild, her book will appeal to globetrotters and readers of hopeful stories chronicling grief and recovery
Well-written, moving and at times intensely dark