On the opening page of her enchanting memoir, The Long Field: Wales and the Presence of Absence, a Memoir, Pamela Petro (Travels in an Old Tongue) confesses that, until age 23, hearing the word "Wales" conjured a picture of the seagoing mammal, not the "colonized country clinging to a rocky, western bump on the island of Great Britain." But beginning in 1983, when she stepped foot in the land known in its native language as Cymru to pursue a master's degree, she developed a deep affinity for its landscape, people, culture, and, above all, spirit. And she shares that generously here.
The Long Field is so multifaceted that it resists easy categorization. It contains elements of conventional travel writing, like Petro's account of her reluctant ascent of Snowdon, the highest point in the British Isles outside the Scottish Highlands, as well as bits of Wales's tragic history, like the disastrous coal miners' strike of 1984-85, reflecting its centuries-long exploitation at the hands of England.
At its heart, Petro's memoir is a profound exploration of an emotional state associated with the Welsh word hiraeth. Literally translated as a "long field," it's shorthand for an almost mystical connection to "the unattainable things that we sense but can't have, the irretrievable ones beyond place or time that sadden, motivate, inspire, and mark us."
Readers who have traveled to Wales will relish Petro's ability to summon her experiences with a profoundly observant eye and prose that, at times, possesses an almost poetic quality. And those who haven't will be struck by the urge to do so after reading her thoughtful, evocative memoir. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer