Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams. 387 pp. PantheonTerry Tempest Williams has always been comfortable with mosaics. In her most renown book to date Refuge (1991 Pantheon), she frequently changes the subject: one line break and then she confidently moves on to a different topic. The narrative flow between her discussions of the Great Salt Lake, bird sanctuaries, her family history, and her dying mother hang not on linear movement but are supported upon taut underlying threads.
This time Williams tells us from the get go that she is consumed by the subject of mosaics, of building something beautiful from something broken. She delivers a single meditation in three acts. The work of finding and building beauty imbues each act. Although she does not say it, her definition of beauty is flooded with images and ideas about acting and working in love.
She begins in Ravenna, Italy learning the act and art of mosaic creation. The lessons of working with broken elements bring resonance to her second act where she works with a research-oriented prairie-dog-restoration team in Utah. The pages and pages of journal entries on prairie dog observation might seem excessive, except that we know mosaics are made of small pieces. Williams uses the pieces of information to create the living image of a fractured biota and devoted conservation team. She deftly establishes the prairie dog as a keystone species in a landscape broken by fields, fences and development. She makes us love the dusty little rodents, their home, and their protectors.
In the final act, Williams travels to a place fractured on a human scale that is painful to consider. She travels to a small village of survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to participate in an act aimed to spark social change and healing. In the country that is “struggling with peace one person at time,” one would not be surprised to find ferocity of anger that can not be diminished. Yet, despite the many challenges and graves, the village hums with grace. Hopeful acts do build change—change for Rwanda and an unexpected change for Williams.
Also of interest: Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
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