Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery

A journalist's biography of the  unassuming but gutsy 67-year-old Ohio grandmother who  became the  first person to walk  all 2,050 miles of the Appalachian Trail  three times. When Emma Gatewood  (1887–1983) first decided she would hike the  A.T., she told no one what she planned to do—not even her 11 children or 23 grandchildren. Instead, she quietly slipped away from her home in May 1955 and began her walk  at the  southern terminus of the trail  in Georgia. Accomplishing this feat—which she often described as "a good lark"—was enough for her. Tampa Bay Times staff writer Montgomery tells the story of Gatewood's  first hike and those that followed, interweaving the story  with the  heartbreaking details of  her earlier life. He suggests that this woman , who  eventually came to be known as "Queen of the  Forest," was far from the  eccentric others claimed she was. Instead, Montgomery posits that this celebrated hiker used long-distance walking to help her come to terms with a dark secret. At 18, Gatewood  married a man she later discovered had a violent temper and an insatiable sexual appetite. Despite repeated beatings over 30 years, she remained with him until he nearly killed her. Afterward, she lived happily with her children for almost 20 years. Montgomery suggests that an article in National Geographic may have been what first inspired Gatewood  to hike the trail . However, as her remarkable trek demonstrated, while the  A.T. was as beautiful as the  magazine claimed, it was also in sore need of  maintenance. Gatewood's  exploits, which would later include walking the  Oregon Trail , not only brought national attention to the  state of  hikers' trails  across a nation obsessed with cars and newly crisscrossed with highways; it also made Americans more aware of the  joys of  walking and of  nature itself. A quiet delight of  a book .(Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2014)

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