The Shape of Wilderness

by Shelley Berc

A coming-of-age story set in a prophetic American wilderness, by an award-winning playwright.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566890365
• ISBN13: 9781566890366
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Shape of the Wilderness by Shelley Berc

Deep, witty, betrayal of a household abandoned by the father leaving the wife, and two daughters along with the men who step up and in, furrowing, depleting the genius. One woman will survive and teaches me, never judge a book by it cover. It is likened to a fairy tale based on a real story. I did and grieve for the three women gone before me in another time with pressure of betrayal, stealth, abuse throwing the residual by products of self discust to underserving witness. Wonderful way to talk about today's issue among woman and young people. There is a timeless affinity expressed. Jacks Metelica Brzezinski

From Dust to Divine

"Myth is not about something that never happens but about something that happens over and over again." Solon Finally a myth for the Americas, a myth for us! In "The Shape of Wilderness" we experience the wonder and the horror of the hero's journey as we travel with Rose through natural and supernatural adventures. Whether we are children of the conquerors, the conquered or refugees living in the Americas we can recognize elements of our experience and those of our ancestors as we join her journey. Dr. Berc has seamlessly drawn from the timeless myths of the world and invented a modern myth. We immerse ourselves into a fantastical world combining the nature worship of indigenous cultures, the magic realism of the south and the brutal fairy tales of the Grimm brothers to form a myth of our modern world and our journey within it. With insight the author has grappled head-on with the essential ingredient of every myth passed through the ages: Creativity. With courage she offers a creation myth with a marvelous twist: included are the joy and the pain of the act of creation, the pouring of every fiber of body and soul to put form to idea. Our hero is Rose a plump and pimpled teenager we meet on her 15th birthday as she leaves behind childhood to enter the terrifying adventure of womanhood in a world that has forgotten the way to honor the female. We meet her parents, her grandmother, her sister and her sister's lover. But are these characters in a book or are they archetypes of the human mind which we encounter with our hero as she discovers her true self? Here is a mythological "spiritual aid" Joseph Campbell wished for the modern age. Don't be surprised if after reading this book your dreams teach you something unexpected!

Lovely and painful book

Shelley Berc is a talent, that's for sure. Her experiments in playwriting are phenomenal, and her stark, sometimes beautiful first novel, The Shape of Wilderness, displays a great deal of that talent. In some cases, though, she succeeds almost too well--for instance, a scene, late in the book, which is meant to be ugly, comes across as so utterly repulsive that I had to put the book down for almost a week. A friend couldn't continue after that scene.The Shape of Wilderness is a kind of fantasia on an old-fashioned house in the midwest--but don't expect Little House on the Prairie. The setting is more a backdrop for Berc's characters, who are colored with feeling and idea--ideas of beauty and self-destructive behavior in the one sister, the beauty of living things in contrast with the beauty of unchanging, eternal things which are dead for the other girl.On the whole, a strong recommendation with a warning for those who have a weak stomach.