Point Last Seen

Rating:
Summary: Footprint can lead to a Philosophy of Life
Review: Female trackers are rarer than female hunters and Hannah Nyala is a master female tracker. Her book reveals the painful side of her life as she takes us down the battered trail of "a woman who stayed with a husband that beat her". And she opens up the tasks and thinking of a professional tracker. She shows how the act of following footprints on the ground leeds to a philosophy of life. For example these tracker truths are worth pondering:

1) As we hurry towards our goals in life we miss the subtleties of life itself.

2) Details mater enormously as you track...evidence of life, of movement, is what a tracker must find first.... Pattern are crucial.

3) Retracing steps requires getting alarmingly close to what is most unknown in ourselves

4) It is the little things, the tiny decision or non-decisions, that contribute most to losing one's way.

5) Part of the process of getting lost is losing sight of your reference point without noticing that it has disappeared.

Point last seen ...for a tracker is vitally important, getting to that location before all signs of the lost are destroyed is the trackers first priority. This is an enterating and engaging book. Recommended

Rating:
Summary: Following Footprints can lead to a philosophy of life.
Review: Female trackers are rarer than female hunters and Hannah Nyala is a master female tracker. Her book reveals the painful side of her life as she takes us down the battered trail of "a woman who stayed with a husband that beat her". And she opens up the tasks and thinking of a professional tracker. She shows how the act of following footprints on the ground leeds to a philosophy of life. For example these tracker truths are worth pondering:

1) As we hurry towards our goals in life we miss the subtleties of life itself.

2) Details mater enormously as you track...evidence of life, of movement, is what a tracker must find first.... Pattern are crucial.

3) Retracing steps requires getting alarmingly close to what is most unknown in ourselves

4) It is the little things, the tiny decision or non-decisions, that contribute most to losing one's way.

5) Part of the process of getting lost is losing sight of your reference point without noticing that it has disappeared.

Point last seen ...for a tracker is vitally important, getting to that location before all signs of the lost are destroyed is the trackers first priority. This is an enterating and engaging book. Recommended

Rating:
Summary: Seamless blend of parallels
Review: Hannah Nyala's life is of duality and parallels, where a childhood skills of tracking is her saving grace in her family and professional life. I was far more interested in learning how people track and how they see the world compared to the rest of us who generally have heads in the clouds, where as trackers are literally grounded. Nyala skillfully applies the tracker skills to narrating why women such as she stay in abusive marriages and how she would eventually find the confidence and strength to search for a different and better life, which parallels her growing skill as a tracker of lost hikers and frightened children. She would even journey to Africa to better her tracking skills and there she would realize domestic violence crosses culture, race, and class. Her writing style is calm and lacks self-pity. Nyala has a clear eye for those around her even when the future (goal) is yet to be found.

Rating:
Summary: A COMPELLING ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY'S COURAGE
Review: Hunted or hunter? Hannah Nyala has been both as she relates in her sometimes chilling frequently hopeful autobiography.

"Nothing can adequately prepare a human being for becoming another's prey," she writes. Yet for 19 years Nyala has been the quarry in a twisted game of cat and mouse.

She has also been the hunter, saving lives as part of a National Park Service search-and-rescue team.

Little in a bucolic childhood spent in southern Mississippi prepared her to contend with violence. The simple evangelistic Christianity embraced by her family taught her meekness, obedience, to turn the other cheek - even when it will be beaten bloody.

Kevin seemed quiet and sensitive when they met at a religious camp meeting. They married several weeks shy of her high school graduation. She had entered purgatory.

He beat her. Even when her waist was thick with child. Why? Because there were not exactly six ice cubes in his glass of tea. The cycle of bludgeoning accelerated, later laced with threats to kill their children, Jon and Ruthie, before dismembering her body.

If hand towels were perfectly folded but the space between them was incorrect, Kevin might choke her until she lost
consciousness.

"So after leaving him," Nyala writes, "no matter where my children and I lived, we deliberately hung our towels sloppily - not out of proposed rebellion, but as a marker: If we ever came in and found two hand towels folded precisely in thirds and hung on the towel bar with exactly one inch of space between them, it meant that he had been in the house. And might still be there."

Knowing that Kevin is pursuing them, Nyala and her family live in terror. Her worst fear is realized when Kevin kidnaps their children. Numb with grief she can only put one foot in front of the other, turning to the mountains for spiritual solace and survival.

The slow solitary process of studying footprints, tracking was her salvation. She learns to read broken twigs, bent grass, pebbles pressed into the earth, as well as to discern "The almost imperceptible trail a scorpion leaves behind."

Eventually she met Frank, a park ranger who became her second husband. They move to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California's Mojave Desert.

In graceful prose the author describes nature's world, the lush unexpectedness of desert flowers, animals scurrying to shade between rocks. She learns patience in the desert, and that "Tracking means learning to walk alongside, caring enough to reach out to other people."

After being largely responsible for finding a lost child and the subject of attendant publicity, Nyala finds that her team mates regard her as competitor rather than comrade. Uncomfortable in this situation, she decides to pursue a college degree in anthropology.

Being reunited with her children should provide the anticipated happy ending. But Nyala's life isn't written by the Brothers Grimm.

Her marriage to Frank ends in an amicable divorce. While she is at last awarded custody of her children, Kevin is allowed to post bail. Her home is broken into sixteen times. She and the children find towels precisely folded in thirds hanging on the towel bar. Today Kevin is a free man.

"Tracking marks my continued search for a safe place, while violence marks my repeated encounters with fear," she tells us. "Neither has yet canceled the other out."

Nonetheless, Nyala's story is ultimately one of empowerment, growing strength, and survival. Point Last Seen is the compelling account of a family's courage, which speaks to all who love and seek to protect each other.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: A COMPELLING ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY'S COURAGE
Review: Hunted or hunter? Hannah Nyala has been both as she relates in her sometimes chilling frequently hopeful autobiography.

"Nothing can adequately prepare a human being for becoming another's prey," she writes. Yet for 19 years Nyala has been the quarry in a twisted game of cat and mouse.

She has also been the hunter, saving lives as part of a National Park Service search-and-rescue team.

Little in a bucolic childhood spent in southern Mississippi prepared her to contend with violence. The simple evangelistic Christianity embraced by her family taught her meekness, obedience, to turn the other cheek - even when it will be beaten bloody.

Kevin seemed quiet and sensitive when they met at a religious camp meeting. They married several weeks shy of her high school graduation. She had entered purgatory.

He beat her. Even when her waist was thick with child. Why? Because there were not exactly six ice cubes in his glass of tea. The cycle of bludgeoning accelerated, later laced with threats to kill their children, Jon and Ruthie, before dismembering her body.

If hand towels were perfectly folded but the space between them was incorrect, Kevin might choke her until she lost
consciousness.

"So after leaving him," Nyala writes, "no matter where my children and I lived, we deliberately hung our towels sloppily - not out of proposed rebellion, but as a marker: If we ever came in and found two hand towels folded precisely in thirds and hung on the towel bar with exactly one inch of space between them, it meant that he had been in the house. And might still be there."

Knowing that Kevin is pursuing them, Nyala and her family live in terror. Her worst fear is realized when Kevin kidnaps their children. Numb with grief she can only put one foot in front of the other, turning to the mountains for spiritual solace and survival.

The slow solitary process of studying footprints, tracking was her salvation. She learns to read broken twigs, bent grass, pebbles pressed into the earth, as well as to discern "The almost imperceptible trail a scorpion leaves behind."

Eventually she met Frank, a park ranger who became her second husband. They move to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California's Mojave Desert.

In graceful prose the author describes nature's world, the lush unexpectedness of desert flowers, animals scurrying to shade between rocks. She learns patience in the desert, and that "Tracking means learning to walk alongside, caring enough to reach out to other people."

After being largely responsible for finding a lost child and the subject of attendant publicity, Nyala finds that her team mates regard her as competitor rather than comrade. Uncomfortable in this situation, she decides to pursue a college degree in anthropology.

Being reunited with her children should provide the anticipated happy ending. But Nyala's life isn't written by the Brothers Grimm.

Her marriage to Frank ends in an amicable divorce. While she is at last awarded custody of her children, Kevin is allowed to post bail. Her home is broken into sixteen times. She and the children find towels precisely folded in thirds hanging on the towel bar. Today Kevin is a free man.

"Tracking marks my continued search for a safe place, while violence marks my repeated encounters with fear," she tells us. "Neither has yet canceled the other out."

Nonetheless, Nyala's story is ultimately one of empowerment, growing strength, and survival. Point Last Seen is the compelling account of a family's courage, which speaks to all who love and seek to protect each other.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic true story of survival and strength.
Review: Point Last Seen is a fantastic story of one woman's personal survival, growth and finding strength within herself. Hanna Nyala, after escaping a young and very violent, sadistic marriage, compounded by the loss of her children who were kidnapped by their father, goes into the desert to find some peace and refuge. She becomes a tracker at a national park, searching for lost hikers, children at peril, and in the process finds strength and comfort for herself. Nyala's calm, non self-pitying rendition of her story is powerfuly affecting, for this reader at least and likely many others. The story was recently made into one of the better made for tv movies starring Linda Hamilton. Nyala's quiet but powerful use of words, and her comparisons of the methods used in tracking as a metaphor for finding one's own path are uniquely expressed and inspiring. This is an unforgettable book.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, compassionate, and presevering
Review: POINT LAST SEEN is a fascinating autobiography not because it provides an insightful look at a female tracker rising above an abusive relationship, but because the nonfiction book lacks the polished skills of a professional co-author sanitizing any feelings out of the account. Instead this time the reader obtains the heart-felt inner soul of an individual seeking to better herself and her children through a skill learned from her grandmother that brings the author in harmony with herself, her family (except the ex) and nature. Hannah Nyala describes the duality of her life. Her anecdotes of locating individuals lost in the wilds are incredible, as these stories read more like strong fiction similar in a sense to her wonderful novel, LEAVE NO TRACE. She also describes her personal life starting as a Mississippi dropout to becoming a teenage battered spouse with two children to her escape to freedom and finally to tracking her abducted children when her husband and his goons kidnap them. Though lacking a professional sheen, biography fans will want to track down this strong account of a woman survivor.

Harriet Klausner