The Poisoner's Handbook

Book:  The Poisoner's Handbook
Basic Information : Synopsis :  Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Deborah Blum

Edition: epub on Libby

Publisher:  Penguin Press 

ISBN: Penguin Press 

Start Date: June 1, 2026 

Read Date: June 20, 2026

319 pages

Genre:  History, Biography, Science

Language Warning:   Low

Rated Overall: 3½  out of 5

History: 3 out of 5

Synopsis:

The book is essentially a biography of Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler. Rach chapter is about a particular kind of poison. The author tells a story at the start of each chapter with an emphasis on the port which Norris and Gettler play. The chapters talk about the poison-both its composition as well as how it is detected. Then resolving the case.

Expectations:

• Date Became Aware of Book: 2018??
• Why do I want to read this book: Deborah Blum had come to Fresno State to give a talk. She used to work for the Fresno Bee and people I know said she was pretty good.
• What do I think I will get out of it? Recently I read a Dorothy Sayers book, Strong Poison where a person is murdered with arsenic. I figure this book might give some good background.

Thoughts:

PROLOGUE

Before the 1800’s and the early 1900’s, a poisoner’s chances of being caught were few because there were not a whole bunch of ways to detect if a person had been poisoned. A sudden violent sickness, a strange taste in the last meal or drink or having an animal taste the last meal were about the only ways to detect death by poison. Starting in the early 1800’s chemists started to be able to determine the kinds of chemicals which were in food and in a body. But along with the means to detect poison, more poisons became available as people were able to produce new ones.

Poisoning was different from the typical murder. They were not done in hot anger. Rather it took planning. Homicidal poisoning requires a calculating intelligence. World War I accelerated the use of chemicals to kill people.

ONE - CHLOROFORM (CHCl) 1915

Talks about the previous coroner to Norris, Patrick Riordan. He was a worthless drunk. Up through 1915 there was very little qualification to be a coroner or to sign the death certificate. Their information was unreliable and prosecutors would try not to include them in any court case. Then New York City decided that the position needed to be filled by a qualified doctor with pathological experience. This would take effect in 1918.

TWO - WOOD ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1918—1919

Talks about the role which Tammany Hall played in the selection of coroner and other medical people, such as the chief medical examiner. They ignored the qualifications which a person must have until there was such an uproar that the old coroner, Riordan, was forced out of office. It was through the state which this happened.

Dr Charles Norris was appointed in his place. Norris had been the chief of laboratories at Bellevue. As medical examiner, Norris set the standards for what was expected for forensic work. He went beyond loving his job, to it becoming his life. He came from a family of old money and he would fund his office when New York would not provide proper funding. He was well published in the medical field. He was able to move the offices into Bellevue as they had created a building just for the purpose of working with the civic authorities. This included a chemistry lab.

He established professional standards. Those who did not live up to them were fired.

Alexander Gettler was hired as the forensic chemist. He lived the ideas which Norris wanted his office to have. Gettler would also make a name for himself as well. Unlike Norris, he had to work to provide his education. Gettler would write the book on what a toxicology laboratory did. When he faced a new situation, he would invent a method for testing for new toxins. For new poisons he would grind up material-from hamburger to dead dogs to human brains-with the poison and experiment until he found a way to identify the poison. With existing ones, he usually had access to an unclaimed dead body.

Talks about the effects of Prohibition. While it did curtail alcohol production from grapes, it just drove the production of alcohol into different forms, such as wood, ethanol or methyl.

Grain alcohol is significantly safer than the ones created in the underground distillaries. Gettler’s message was that This is poison.

Talked about the mustard gas used in World War I and how it seemed more inhumane than shooting or blowing up people. Also about the flu pandemic of 1918.

Described how he developed a very sensitive test for wood alcohol.

THREE - CYANIDES (HCN, KCN, NaCN) 1920–1922

Prohibition started Jan 20, 1920. Alcohol deaths soared due to the type of alcohol used. Not only that, but it contained contaminants such as kerosene, mercury and other chemicals.

Norris’ department was still vastly underfunded.

Gettler noted that to solve a cyanide killing-and I wonder if most other poisons-you needed to know how the poison was administered

Both Norris and Gettler were motivated to work with the legal community to help them understand the science behind forensics. This involved other leading people in the field from all over the nation.

FOUR - ARSENIC (As) 1922—1923

I had a special interest in this chapter. One of the reasons to read this book was the story by Dorothy Sayers called Strong Poison. A person is murdered by arsenic. But all the food consumed by the victim others had eaten as well. Could this book give additional background?

Blum notes that consumed by itself, arsenic has a distinct and unpleasant taste. But mixed if it is in a food or drink, it is hard to distinguish, unless an excessive amount is used.

Arsenic murders seem to incite multiple occurrences, leading to overconfidence in being successful in its application and hideness.

Arsenic breaks down extremely slowly compared to organic poisons and can be detected decades after death in a victim’s hair and fingernails. But the symptoms look like the flu or other common sicknesses.

But as any toxicologist knew, it was also an arsenic solution, creating that look of near-translucent skin by a low-level poisoning of the user. Talking about arsenic in a common household product and the effect it had on someone. This is similar to the murderer which Sayers’ describes.

FIVE - MERCURY (Hg) 1923—1925

Similar chapter structure. One thing which both surprises me and also does not is the common poisons which we are surrounded by. This book helps to bring it out. As in this case, mercury is found in bedbug killers. My first thought is don’t these people know how dangerous all these poisons are? Then I look around and think of all of the chemicals around my house ranging from simple bleach and laundry detergent to Decon to the herb and pesticides in my house.

Reinsch’s Test

Talked about a case where Gettler was able to show that the accusation against a husband poisoning his wife was not justified.

On the other hand, Gettler was able to identify that tetraethyl, used by gas companies to reduce engine knocking, was causing deaths. The plant where this was made was Standard Oil and called the looney gas building. The people who worked in it either went insane or died.

SIX - CARBON MONOXIDE (CO), PART I 1926

Compares death by carbon dioxide and monoxide. While easy to kill with CO₂, it is easy to find out who has bought dry ice. While CO is everywhere. With both, it is the concentration which forces out O₂, which the lack of it will kill us. While abundant, it is easy to detect the cause of death. Just need to figure out how.

I am thinking of the time where we were getting rid of bedbugs from my parents place. One of the methods was to use dry ice in a closed room. I wonder if this is how it worked.

Death from CO₂ comes from suffocation, such as strangling. Death from CO is more industrial-engines or natural gas.

SEVEN - METHYL ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1927

World War I had taught that chemists could be more dangerous than other scientists. The government chemists were now working on making alcohol deadly. Result of Prohibition not working as intended. People were dying because the alcohol had been poisoned by the chemists, even though drinking, even the refined stuff was illegal.

Bad bootleg alcohol mostly affected the poor. The rich had other means of getting alcohol. One of the side effects was that the only alcohol available was hard stuff. Wine and beer were not legal. So there was no break in period for new drinkers, such as what a beer would offer. So a person’s body could not build up tolerance.

Norris’ thinking was this imposition of one group’s personal beliefs on the rest of society could not be justified as moral. While I agree, sentencing people to death because of drinking to save them from death seems rather off. I wonder how far he would take his thinking. If a person who was a habitual drinker needed treatment at governmental expense, could a dry person object and not have his funds used?

 

 

EIGHT - RADIUM (Ra) 1928—1929

Talks about Harrison Stanford Martland. He was friends with Norris and had become the chief medical examiner of Essex County in New Jersey. He wrote papers and was a man who liked to see his research put to use. Don’t we all? Very few people like to figure things out just to have it put on a shelf, forever ignored. The thing which Martland did was pursue the effects of radioactivity.

Talks about the discovery of Marie and Pierre Currie of radium and polonium. This led to a boom of how radium and radioactive materials could cure almost anything.

A factory which painted radium onto watches had their workers suffering a variety of issues and then they were falling dead. Martland investigated and found their bodies were radioactive. Those alive were exhaling radon gas.

Then there is a separate story about how Norris violated his own rules and held back information about the death of a banner. The “ex-Governor was the principal spokesman” in a plea to hold back the announcement of the death. Specifically, the officials gathered around Norris wanted a delay until the close of banking hours on Saturday at noon. He never did that again.

NINE - ETHYL ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1930-1932

The chapter talks about death from “hard liquor." By the time the 1930’s came about, the insurance companies noted that death from alcohol was 600% more than in 1920, before Prohibition.

Gettler realized it was not the blood alcohol which was dangerous, but how much alcohol made it to the brain. He was not trying to identify how much alcohol made you drunk. Rather how much would kill you.

But as the question of why some people remained sober after drinking, he did do a series of experiments. The result was that as you became an alcoholic, your body learned how to metabolize the alcohol better. But given sufficient amounts of alcohol, you would still get drunk, but at a slower rate.

Covers Norris’ resignation then rehire.

Prohibition ends with Roosevelt coming to power. So do much of the alcohol poisoning deaths.

TEN - CARBON MONOXIDE (CO), PART II 1933—1934

Goes through a murder which used CO as the agent of death after other methods failed.

Talked about forensic medicine starting to be taught as a discipline rather than just another class.

Cigarette smoking was so pervasive that, as Alexander Gettler discovered, the habit interfered with his research into carbon monoxide saturation of the blood. Gettler set out to discover at levels CO lead to death.

ELEVEN - THALLIUM (Tl) 1935—1936

FDA in the 1930’s held no power to regulate or set standards for products. There was no way for the consumer to determine if a product might be harmful.

Talked about the discovery of thallium. And how lethal it is.

Finally, after a string of deaths where the product was “legal” under the law, the FDA was given regulatory powers including testing and requiring labeling.

Norris dies.

EPILOGUE

Concentrates on Gettler’s accomplishments. One of his students, Irving Sunshine, helped move forensic science from the “wet” approach-working with squishy stuff-to one where equipment would examine chemicals-the dry approach. This equipment would be things like a spectroscope. But Sunshine held high respect for his mentor, wondering if the electricity went out, would today’s scientist be able to remotely do what Gettler did.

There was constant anxiety in Gettler’s life: sometimes the dead did walk in Alexander Gettler’s sleep, sometimes they rattled in the black chair of Sing Sing, and always, as he admitted in that last vulnerable interview, “I keep asking myself, have I done everything right?”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Talks about Plum’s time as a chemist and her interest in the subject matter. As toxicologists say, the dose makes the poison. She notes that intentional poisoning is a calculated event made by preplanning. Most of us are repealed by it.

Evaluation:

This book is not for the weak of mind or the stomach. But if you can stomach some of the more grizzly, non-bloody murders, then you will get some pretty good stories of the development of forensic medicine.

The book traces development of forensic medicine through the stories of Dr Charles Norris, the chief pathologist and then medical examiner of New York City during the early 20th century and his chemist, Dr Alexander Gettler, the City’s first toxicologist.

Blum does this by looking at how eleven different poisons were able to be identified as well as the testing to determine critical levels of those poisons. In each chapter, which proceeds roughly in chronological order, there is the story of a murder, the symptoms of the poison, what made the poison deadly and the resolution of the murder. There is some overlap in the discussion of poisons from chapter to chapter. Such as, radium poisoning’s discussion is continued in the next chapter on alcohol.

Towards the end of the book, there is a note about what lead the FDA to be able to regulate what went into foods. The questions about regulation and over-regulation still is of concern today. I wonder if we would be so happy if these regulations were not in effect today.

All in all it is a good book to read and to hear the background of how the science of poison became a science as well as hints of where it is going today.

 
Notes from my book group:

What interests you in reading a book about poisons and poisoners?

Blum says that homicidal poisoning requires a calculating intelligence. Do you agree? Why would a person resort to killing by poison? WHat sort of planning does that need to take?

Norris set the standards for forensic medicine. Why would something like forensics need standards? How did it get by without standards? How do you go about creating an acceptable set of standards? Did Norris do it in the fashion you described?

Gettler was an inquisitive person. When he did not know how to identify if something was a poison, he experimented. A lot of times it was with what was considered the undesirables of society. How would his experiments be looked at today?

What poisons do you commonly interact with? Did this book make you aware of all of the poisons you are surrounded with in your home?

The book not only talks about a person who murders with poisons, but the chemicals companies use and its effects. Describe how Gettler and his associates would come to the realization that some of the chemicals companies use are having effects which are harming people. Is anything not illegal allowable?

The book notes that poisons were being produced more rapidly than test could be invented. Should these new chemicals be regulated? How? Does it matter if it is in foods or medicines or personal care? Vs for industrial use?

What does the author want us to feel when we read this book?

How do you want your life to change because you read this book?

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of The Poisoner’s Handbook?

Does this book work as a handbook or is it something else?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different from where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Book References:

• Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology by Rudolph Witthaus
• The Room with the Little Door by Molineux
• Legal Medicine and Toxicology
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
• Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
• 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs
• Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

Good Quotes:

• First Line: UNTIL THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY few tools existed to detect a toxic substance in a corpse.
• Last Line: There are mornings, lit by the cold winter light, when I start talking about a poison in my book, revealing my own dangerous expertise, and as I do, I watch my husband quietly, not really thinking about it, slide his cup out of my reach

: 

 

Table of Contents:

• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• PROLOGUE
• ONE - CHLOROFORM (CHCl) 1915
• TWO - WOOD ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1918—1919
• THREE - CYANIDES (HCN, KCN, NaCN) 1920–1922
• FOUR - ARSENIC (As) 1922—1923
• FIVE - MERCURY (Hg) 1923—1925
• SIX - CARBON MONOXIDE (CO), PART I 1926
• SEVEN - METHYL ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1927
• EIGHT - RADIUM (Ra) 1928—1929
• NINE - ETHYL ALCOHOL (CHOH) 1930-1932
• TEN - CARBON MONOXIDE (CO), PART II 1933—1934
• ELEVEN - THALLIUM (Tl) 1935—1936
• EPILOGUE
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• GRATITUDES
• A GUIDE TO THE HANDBOOK
• NOTES
• INDEX

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book
• Author's Website
• Wikipedia-Book
• Wikipedia-Author
• Amazon-Book
• Amazon-Author
• Barnes and Noble
• GoodReads-Book
• GoodReads-Author
• New York Times Review
• National Geographic Review
• NPR Review
• History in the Margins
• PBS - American Experience
• Booked for the Day blog
• The Journal of Public Health Management & Practice - review

Heartwwood

 

Book: Heartwwood

Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes :  References

Basic Information:

Author: Amity Gaige

Edition: epub on Libby from the Fresno Public Library

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 9781668063606 (ISBN10: 1668063603)

Start Date:  February 5, 2026

Read Date: February 11, 2026 

309 pages

Genre:  Fiction, Outdoor,OSHER

Language Warning:  Low

Rated Overall: 3  out of 5

Fiction-Tells a good story:4 out of 5

Fiction-Character development: 3½  out of 5

Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):

There are several threads to this story. The main one is finding a lost hiker in Maine who was on the Appalachian Trail. It goes through how the search is done. The story also involves being close to a Naval survival school as well as a young man with mental issues. The hiker is found.

A sub-story is a 76 year old lady in an assisted living facility who likes to forage, but is a loner. She and her daughter are estranged. The two slowly work on getting together.

Then there is the story of the survival of the hiker.

Cast of Characters:

• See Book Companion for a complete list of characters
• Valerie Gillis-aka Sparrow, lost hiker. 42 years old, Caucasian, nurse
• Ruben Serrano-aka Santo, Sparrow’s hiking partner until he left the trail
• Beverly Miller-Lieutenant warden, in command of the search
• Rob Cross-Beverly’s second in command
• Tanya Duning-investigator for the search
• Cody Ouellette-warden
• Gregory Bouras-Valerie’s husband
• Lena Kugharski-76 year old woman in rest home. Divorced, having one child, Christine who is estranged from her. Became a cytologist.
• Daniel Means-username, Terrible Silence
• Warren Esterman-friend of Lena, retired lawyer
• Wayne Gillis-Valerie’s father
• Janet Gillis-Valerie’s mother
• Christine-Lena’s long lost daughter.

Expectations:

• Recommendation: OSHER Book Club
• When: November 2025
• Why do I want to read this book: OSHER Book Club
• What do I think I will get out of it? Entertaining story of a lost hiker

Thoughts:

OSHER Book Club blurb: Heartwood by Amnity Gaige

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy- six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found.

Comments made during our OSHER Book CLub:

• Valerie had no business out there without having more experience

• It was interesting to me that it was brought up that was this attitude because she was a woman? To me, not because I would say the same thing if a male had the same skill level she had. 

• Racism on trail-this was concern about Santo

• Listening to the book on audio was better than reading it. The audio had different voices  and actors for each charter.

• It seemed like many characters had a drive to accomplish something

• Good descriptions

• Where did she have the paper to write?

• One person tried to make a case a person has a right to go into the wild without being prepared.

• I do not think so because you are also putting rescuers in danger.

• Gaige tried to add mystery to a straightforward story

• There seemed to be a time disconnect

• Nancy Guthrie-current lost person

• Many mother-daughter relationships in the book

• Gets on trail and which is uncomfortable to her while Valerie was tried to comfort others. Was she able to feel comfortable herself?

 

Gaige seems to like very technical words. Most of the time the more general word would do. I am thinking she may have a new thesaurus and wants to show she can use it.

Many chapters are divided into two or three parts. The first is the thoughts of the person named in the chapter heading. Second is some item which the Wardens have done or are examining, and third is writings from Sparrow. Also there is more background, usually given by Santo, Sparrow’s hiking partner. Then last is usually and entry from Sparrow’s journal.

Valerie gives herself a trail name of Sparrow. Santa also names himself. A trail name is meant to be some part of your recognized identity by other hikers. Out West here, it seems like that is mostly frowned on-but looking at a site, they advocate giving yourself a name while another site noted that is frowned on. There was a survey of AT hikes, 223 of them, something like 80% of them were gifted the name. 20% gave themselves their name. That surprises me. 

 

I have charted out the area which most of this book takes place on Google Earth. The kmz file can be found by clicking on this link.

 

Epigraph

Valerie has an entry about who she is and why she is called Sparrow.

In this chapter, Valerie calls her mother her heartwood, someone who is the core of who she is.

1. Lt. Bev

Any woodsman who says he’s never been lost in the woods is a liar. Then again Daniel Boone has been reported to say that “I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.” And I have a tendency to say that I have never been lost in the mountains of the Sierra. Now sometimes in a city I have been turned around. Also I have the tendency to be turned around right at the start of a walk. I have been reported lost once, but I knew where I was, my hiking partner just walked right by me.

I do like this statement: Up here, we tend to think of being lost as something you can be good at. I like to think that I am pretty good at wandering. Or as Tolkien said, “Not all who wander are lost.”

loss of mental control is more dangerous than the lack of food or water. This is what I have read. Keeping your cool and being optimistic will increase your chances of survival.

This is where Gaige brings in the lost hiker of the AT, Valerie Gillis. She started in Harpers Ferry, WV on April 21st and has been slowly hiking for three months.

Lt Bev explains how easy it is to get lost in the woods of Maine.

Then she explains what it is to search for a lost hiker. It is a guess on the most probable location. They have a starting place: July 25th starting at Poplar Ridge shelter. May have been seen at Spaulding Mountain shelter.

Sparrows’s thoughts.

hiking the Appalachian Trail isn’t a reasonable thing to do. She notes you do not hike that long to find beauty-you are looking for something else. She describes the pains and suffering of a thru hiker. It is not if you will feel bad, it is how bad, how critical and how much you can stand. the act of walking while carrying the weight of my pack had wrung all the sadness out of me, the sadness for myself and for the world.

Either a long distance hike will break you or change you. In Sparrow’s case, The trail transformed me

Talks about Santos how he is a chubby boy from the Bronx. And his relationship with Sparrow.

2. Lt. Bev

References Maine code: Title 12, section 10105. What Gaige omitted was that it is paragraph 4 which is important for Search and Rescue: Whenever the commissioner receives notification that any person has gone into the woodlands or onto the inland waters of the State on a hunting, fishing or other trip and has become lost, stranded or drowned, the commissioner shall exercise the authority to take reasonable steps to ensure the safe and timely recovery of that person, … There are several subparts to this as well.

Gaige references some stats. In the Maine 2024 Search and Rescue Report, there is some interesting information:

The “Hasty Search” is the most effective and most utilized tactic that results in a find. This tactic involves quick searching in high probability areas that will most likely find the lost person. Hasty searches accounted for120 finds during FY24. “Self-found” is a category that generally occurs very quickly after a person is reported lost or missing. The lost person or persons generally figure out where they are and report back to the caller before we arrive on scene.

Last Seen (PLS) that a dispatcher or warden can obtain at the time to where the subject was located. As has always been the trend, the majority (75%) of lost people are found within a quarter of a mile from the PLS. 87% of lost people are found within 1 mile from the PLS. Searching a mile on land or water takes a considerable number of resources, time and effort to do effectively.

When you exclude the 26 individuals who were found deceased that were outside of our “control” we located 98.6% of missing persons alive. The outside control is either water related-drowning-or suicide.

In the Maine 2020 Search and Rescue Report, the time and probability of rescue is the same as what Gaige reports:

Our data shows that within 12 hours, 92% of the people are located. Within 24 hours, 97% of people are located. These statistics have been the same for over a decade since we started keeping this statistic. Multi-day search operations are not a common occurrence.

Says they were assembling at Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel which is on the other side of the mountain. But there is a ski lift and a good trail to the Spaulding shelter. Talks about the process of putting together teams of searchers.

Talks about Valerie’s husband and meeting him.

crime is rare on the trail. I think this is generally true. But it is not rare for a single female to be harassed by a male in the backcountry.

All sorts of people with false leads come out the woodwork-some might-haves, some just wanted to get involved, some are just loppy.

3. Lt. Bev

More description of how searchers search-in a line, side-by-side, closely spaced. At the end of the sector, they swing around and go to the next area-the searching is only as wide of the line as they are in. Consequently in deep forest or brush or rocks, searchers can get really battered and scratched. Slow, labor intensive process.

Bev wonders at night what Valerie is looking at. Bev also relives her childhood.

She goes through her childhood and the bullying she received as a 6’ female in school. She was out there in the woods looking for a sign, you see. I wanted to be called to something. Interesting that Gaige presents the concept of calling. It raises the question of who would be calling Beverly and to what purpose? She roused a deer once and realized that was what she was meant to do. Breath of a doe. That was my call.

She is driven to find lost people; driven to find Valerie.

Sparrow is not really an outdoors person. She has a hard time lighting a fire-which I have also had that experience when everything is wet. She has also lost a boot. She both laughs and cries when I cannot believe what is happening to me

She is starting to starve. How long can a person go without food? She has been hiking for months. Generally there is a calorie deficiency when thru-hiking. Such as when we hiked the JMT, we backed around 2500 calories per day, but expended between 3500 and 4500 calories in a day's activity. When Valerie was at this point, she probably did not have too much excess fat and would have started consuming muscle if she was moving.

She has enough sense to stay in one place. Then Gaige gives us the hook to continue reading. I don’t know which scares me more—being found by him, or being found by no one.

4. Lena

Lena is a loner in a retirement community. She reads and thinks that without books, there was nothing but time. Learning came fast for her. She was considered special as in an odd ball as she did not follow the crowd. She is Polish and 76, and cannot move around easily without her wheelchair. She loves to forage behind the community with her friend Warren.

Lena is occasionally beset by a nauseating transition between the page and the world, as if a decision has been handed down in these twilight years of her life: world trumps book.

no matter how much you study life, it studies you back.

Through a foraging Reddit subsite, she became friends with TerribleSilence. But not really does she know anything about this person except that TerribleSilence is a he and an expert in the field of foraging. He also lives in Bethel, Maine.

He is the one who notes the missing hiker to Lena and rouses her interest. Lena wonders if it is her long lost daughter, Christine.

Lena talks with Warren and says her fears. She cannot bear the suggestion that her mind is unsafe.

5. Lt. Bev

Start of massive search, including dog teams and volunteer searchers. Like the Amish raise their barns, Mainers search for each other in the woods. It’s what we do.

They have a tip line going. Only about 2 percent of tip line calls are useful. Ruben Serrano calls, aka Santo, who was Valerie’s hiking partner until he needed to go back to New York. She sends Cody to interview him. They form a relationship.

Bev has put her personal life on hold during this crucial part of the search.

Valerie does not have much in the way of wilderness skills or experience, except this trail. The husband says that Valerie does not love him anymore-it is something she realized out on the trail. But he still loves her and supports her time on the trail.

No real sign of Valerie at the end of the day. Her mother and dad show up, very optimistically.

6. Lena

A picture is published and Lena realizes that Valerie is not her daughter, but Lena feels a wrenching intimacy with her regardless. The picture is a clue to what happened to the hiker. Gaige publishes a bogus website for AT hikers: 2000milers.net. There are real ones and real Facebook groups for each long trail and many shorter ones.

Switches to Valerie’s journal and how she does not have much food-about a thousand calories remaining. She eventually eats grubs. Also her foot has been cut. She says that no one hikes two thousand miles because they’re happy. I do not know about the 2000 miles, but I have met many folks who have hiked 200 miles and are content with themselves and glad that they are doing it. I for one. So why does Gaige say this?

Everybody’s got a reason to hike the trail. I would agree with that. Some people look at a long trail as something which they need to do, like a marathon. Others do it to get away from people. Some because they enjoy being around someone else. And other are trying to understand themselves better.

Valerie is hiking the AT because being a nurse during the pandemic, she was overwhelmed. She needed to go back and discover herself. She needed to recover from the stress. I wanted someone to acknowledge my moral injury.

She sees a search plane, but it does not see her.

Santo is being interviewed. He says that Valerie had become content on the trail, with the people on the trail. He notes that You have to walk it to understand it.

7. Lt. Bev

Day four of the search. Press conference. Wayne and Janet seem to accept and even love him [Gregroy], which, for the moment, is good enough for me. The family trusts Bev.

9. Lena

Talks about Lena and her husband’s relationship: They were both so stupid when they were mad. This is probably true anytime a person is mad.

To many people she appeared lonely. Gaige points out that A reader is never lonely. … she didn’t like people, so how could she be lonely for them?

Talks about how she started communicating with TerribleSilence.

TerribleSilence comes back and thinks that Valerie has been captured by SERE. There is a Naval version of this in Maine at Rangeley. The main part is at least 10 miles away from where Valerie was last seen. But there is a section of six miles where the AT bisects SERE. This is where Valerie stayed the night and was moving towards Spaulding Mountain.

As a note: there is a Marine SERE base on the other side of Sonora Pass called Mountain Warfare Training Center . These bases are not really super-secrative, not saying you can just walk in. There are others in California, usually around existing military bases.

When I read this part of the book, I wondered, are we going to wander down a conspiracy rabbit hole? There should have been a clue when TerribleSilence started spouting crazy stuff such as getting into a fistfight with people from SERE and coming out of it with information.

10. Lt. Bev

Carrabassett mountains-not really a named set of mountains, at least not on GNIS. Maybe a local designation.

She is getting frustrated by not finding Valerie and wants to go out into the field to actually see what is going on.

Penobscot-an Indigenous people in North America from the Northeastern Woodlands region.

Talks about Regina and her dog Badger. Talks about scents. I am thinking of the book The Last Season where the dog had a scent of Randy Morgensten and then it disappeared. Regina is almost a friend of Bev.

SERE people show up saying they have been assigned to look for the lost hiker. They said they are half a mile out of their area. Wonder where they were searching or what lead them there?

Valerie’s journal:

Describes how she left the trail. A 20 year old kid said they had to get out of there. She followed him off the trail and then through brush. Then quickly got out of sight of the trail. If I had turned around, I wouldn’t be writing this letter. The guy seemed to know where he was going. When they came to a cliff, he threw her pack of it. She wanted to leave, but he would not let her. She had no idea where they were.

He tells her why he cannot let her go. There is a secret installation where they are working twenty-four-hour darkness. He calls it The Night Army. I wonder if she borrowed this from The Lord of the Rings? Or maybe a version of The Game of Thrones.

There is an interesting statement of never try to call the bluff of a madman.

She tries to run away. He catches her-her thought, what a waste of energy.

After reading the book, I plotted out a few things and wondered, how did the man go past the SERE facility? There is a narrow corridor which the trail goes through SERE for about 6 miles. I cannot believe they passed through the actual SERE without being detected. Maybe him, but I do not think she would be quiet.

11. Lt. Bev

Bev finds Valerie’s mother standing in front of a store handing out flyers about her daughter. Bev joins here. Mothers like her will light the last night on earth.

Describes Bev’s family.

Gaige has a line about stars: Those stars, those stars that don’t care. This reminds me of a book by Daniel James Brown called The Indifferent Stars Above. It is about the Donner Party. I wonder if that is what caused Gaige to write that sentence.

Bev's mom did not understand what drove her. When she got the position of game warden, her mother said There must be a reason there’s no other women in that line of work.

But what drives Bev is when she realizes that I had standing atop a mountain, face-to-face with the horizon, or wading in remote rivers, was a satisfaction and a peace beyond explanation.

Santo describes a piece of Trail magic, where someone is generous to through hikers. On the PCT it is water and watermelon in the dessert.

Santo describes one piece of the trail called the Lemon Squeezer. Yes, this is a real thing. See the picture on this website.

Santo is called home when his father is about to die.

12. Lena

As a single mom, Lena seemed like she was over the top on things. She measured everything Christine did and was.

TerribleSilence writes back what he has found: IS VALERIE INSIDE THE COMPOUND? Possible SERE grounds stakeout. Night vision goggles, etc., look for any suspicious movements or activity. Either the book or TerribleSilence is definitely being insane. I am wondering if Gaige wrote this book to show how easy it is to fall for strange ideas, or a conspiracy or to make believable unsupported statements. Such as TerribleSilence says that the Warden Service and the Military are in bed with each other to cover up things. Also he is making sure she does not do anything to alert the authorities by saying even calling the tip line makes her a suspect.

He sends a picture of a sign he took off of SERE warning “about do not enter”. Another clue about what happened.

Lean realizes that she is and always will be an observer, not someone who takes action.

Back to Valerie:

She escapes! And wants the security of family. But then is caught in a trap set by her captor. But she still had the determination that I simply had to stay alive.

my thru-hike had changed me—no, shown me to myself. I’d been honest, very honest. Through hikes have a tendency to do that. It reduces you to the basics-eat, hike, sleep, then repeat. Then you start knowing something about yourself and what is essential.

Another hint which will become important later on.

Her kidnapper left.

13. Lt. Bev

Conversation with a retired game warden. He centers it on SERE. She resists.

She gets reluctant cooperation from SERE.

Interview with Gregory, then a piece from the tip line.

Valerie’s journal.

I can’t grip the pen anymore. There is an NIH article on prolonged fasting-it talks about 10 days worth. As was noted earlier, Valerie has been two months with bare minimum food intake while expending a considerable amount of energy walking. The article talks about a ten day fast under controlled conditions. There did not seem to be any long term effects.

Talks about her escape.

14. Lena

TerribleSilence has gone silent.

She decides she needs to make an appearance at the dinner table-she avoids this. She is greeted by “Nice to see you, Lena,” says blind Juanita. I suspect this is the author’s attempt at humor. There are a couple of places she uses something like that. I think it is along the lines as a psychology professor of Sherri’s had a dry sense of humor and used it to see who in the class was paying attention.

At the dinner table they were discussing Presidential biographies. Warren asks: do we judge the biography by the writer or the subject? I actually used an off-shoot of this question in my own Book Group. I think it is a good one. Another person says that Sinners make for better stories. Probably true, or at least when there is tension, drama and/or action. That may go along with the sinners.

15. Lt. Bev

Ten day mark. Call from her boss, not directly discouraging, but as a check in and letting her know what is on his mind. Encouraging her to take a day from the search. They have searched 4,000 acres, about 6.25 sq miles. A lot of ground, but not much considering the area.

Mystery is fine in heaven and in poetry, but on earth, mystery signals human failure. It is the unknown which has failed to be understood.

Life does go on.

It has been awhile since Bev has been to church. God knows you are a broken sinner and loves you anyway. That is what we know as Christians. Then Gaige asks the question: without God, who forgives? Human beings are pretty unforgiving. The law certainly isn’t forgiving. Forgiveness needs a messenger. That is so true. To Christians, Jesus is that messenger and more, from God to say we are loved.

16. Lena

Lena finally gets a response from TerribleSilence’s account. Instead of him, it is his mother. TerribleSilence’s real name is Daniel Means and he has psychological problems. Currently he has been institutionalized. Daniel is 21 years old.

17. Lt. Bev

Day 11 of the search and the largest search event. Even Valerie’s husband goes out.

Bev’s mothers, Ma was a good person. Just lost. It sounded like when her husband left, she just did not have enough to take care of kids. That was left to Bev. what I’d gotten from her wasn’t really goodness as much as postures of goodness. That is sad.

18. Lena

Lena comes to a self-realization. Once you see that your daughter suffers, you must acknowledge that you are impotent and perhaps even insufficient as her mother and protector.

She has an idea about the lost hiker.

19. Lt. Bev

The least you can do for a mourning mother is give her a body. See the NPR article at the end of the references.

20. Lena

In a fit of anger, she had destroyed her computer. She uses Warren’s and is looking through the old messages. She compares photos of Valerie and Daniel. There is the clue which the author alludes to in chapters 6 and 12

Back to Valerie’s journal:

She reveals why she went on a thru-hike: My question was, When would my heart be whole again? She thinks she was only part way to resolving that question when Santo left the trail. It was on Moosilauke did she realize that she was built to feel, to help, to give. Some day my heart would be put back together, maybe missing a piece or two. But for now, love was another act I couldn’t bear to perform without the proper tools.

Have you ever hiked above the tree line? You should some day. It’s holy up there. That is so true. There is nothing between you and the sky, the sun, the moon. There is a starkness which I have not experienced anyplace else. Generally, it is a place where you can be alone. She says that Moosilauke is where she first experienced being above timberline. Looking at Google Earth, it is only the peak, not like you would see in the Sierra or Rockies.

She decides to move on from her camp.

21. Lt. Bev

Bev met with her supervisor. She thinks she is going to be asked to retire. Instead he is very uplifting and says that after working 12 days, 16 hour days, she needs a break. I wish I had a supervisor like that. She is going to see her dying mother in Massachusetts.

Tip Line conversation: Lena calls in saying they need to contact Daniel Means.

22. Lt. Bev

Talks about visiting her mother and seeing her sisters. Her sisters love Bev as the person who took care of them. Bev realizes what she needs to see is her sister’s family.

Tanya, the investigator, interviewed Daniel Means and told them where he left Valerie. Bev leaves her family and goes back to Maine. This is a four hour drive. Doesn’t she have anybody else who can conduct the search until she gets there? Turns out that everybody else is on assignment, away from the area. They are putting together a search team to come in from Crocker Mountain. That is 3.3 miles away as the crow flies. There is a road on the north side of Black Nubbe only half a mile away. Why not use that one?

How old is this book? Says it was published in 2025. Rob asks if she has her DeLorme. That is not a name I have heard for 10 years now. It made a PLB called InReach, a PLB, which is still very popular today. In 2016 DeLorme was bought by Garmin. So why would she need both the InReach and a PLB?

Regina and Badger will meet her close to Black Nubble. They are tracking at night, trying to find a scent. They find the boot which the mud sucked up. But no scent.

Way leads on to way. From the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. I think Gaige was trying to figure out how to get this poem into the book.

They find her tent and what she left behind. They find her.

25. Lt. Bev

Bev is retiring. Her mom is still alive. She redoes her home in Maine. Valerie gives Bev her journal which she kept on the Trail.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell

I do not regret anything. Poem by A H Auden called The More Loving One.Gaige had quoted this once before.

She ends the book with

Here’s an idea: All emotions start out as love. Later, that love is worked on by the forces of luck and suffering.

Hate is just soured love.

Fear is wounded love.

Longing is homeless love.

Love, not pain, is the mother. Love is the taproot.

I have no regrets. I do not regret anything.

Not sure if this is sappy or what.

Author’s Note

Gerry Largay-based upon this hiker’s experience of being lost and then died after 26 days.

Evaluation:

Amity Gaige’s Heartwood main story is about the search for a lost hiker on the Appalachian Trail and her tale of survival. It is also a story of a 76 year old lady in an assisted living facility who is estranged from her daughter. Added to this, there are concerns about a Naval survival school close to the trail and a young man who has psychological problems.

The strength of the book is that she describes the problems of search and rescue pretty well. She has researched how this is done and writes a pretty compelling description. And her main character, Bev Miller, the leader of the search, is well developed.

But there are so many threads which Gaige tries to weave into the story that she weakens the account of the search. The introduction of the Naval survival school as a source of why the hiker is lost seems more a play on today’s environment of distrust than on something realistic. The part of the troubled young man is a bit disbelievable. He escorted the lost hiker 6 miles off the trail, along with how he did it without arousing attention.

Heartland is an OK read. Spending three or four hours reading it will not be a waste of your time. Just do not hope for great enlightenment.

 
Notes from my book group:

How does the book exemplify that Janet is Valerie’s heartwood? When you hear the word heartwood, what images does it bring to mind?

Have you ever thru-hiked? Where and when? What was your experience doing it? Were you the same person when you got off the trail as when you started?

Have you ever been lost? What was it like?

How realistic do you think Gaige described the search?

What skills and experiences do you need to be an experienced hiker? What should Valerie have known to avoid the situation she was in?

What danger do you think you would face on a multi-day trip? Which ones are the most likely?

loss of mental control is more dangerous than the lack of food or water. If you were lost, what emotions do you think you would need to control? What kind of thinking pattern would you need? Do you think Valerie had that mentality?

Lena thinks that She cannot bear the suggestion that her mind is unsafe. How is this similar to what Valerie was experiencing? In either situation, how can you know when you cannot trust what your mind is telling you?

Valerie wrote that being a thru hiker is not a reasonable thing. Why not? Everybody’s got a reason to hike the trail. Why do you think people thru hike? What reasons does Valerie give? Do you think Gaige understood the thru-hiker mentality?

Why does Gaige include the interviews with Santo? What did it give the story?

Throughout the book, Gaige gives little tidbits about what happened to Valerie and who it was done by. Based upon these clues, how soon did you figure out it was TerribleSilence? Were her clues helpful?

The timeline between what happened to Valerie and Daniel’s conversations with Lena seemed a bit disjointed. Were you able to piece together when the conversations and actions were happening?

Beverly Miller when she was young felt she needed to be called to something. How did she know what she was called to do? This sense of calling, what does it consist of?

Gaige writes about SERE and the distrust Daniel has towards them. Why do you think she picks on SERE as an object of distrust? How easy was it that Lena accepted Daniel’s statement about SERE? Was Daniel’s original distrust of SERE because of his psychological problems? Do you think Gaige is associating conspiracy talk with psychological issues?

Why do you think Gaige included fragments of poetry in this book?

As a throw-away line, Gaige has one of the characters in the dining room as do we judge the biography by the writer or the subject? Also, do Sinners make for better stories?

When Beverly is doing some self-inspection, she realizes that what her mother gave her wasn’t really goodness as much as postures of goodness. What is the difference? What is meant by this?

One bit of inner dialogue which Beverly has is God knows you are a broken sinner and loves you anyway. … without God, who forgives? Human beings are pretty unforgiving. The law certainly isn’t forgiving. Forgiveness needs a messenger. Discuss who forgives if there is no God? Also the thought that there needs to be a messenger of forgiveness.

What does the author want us to feel when we read this book?

How do you want your life to change because you read this book?

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Heartwood?

Does this story work as a thriller or mystery?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

Describe the culture talked about in the book. How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Reading Groups General Fiction Guide

OSHER Book Club Questions:

Discussion Questions

• Valerie’s story is told partly through letters to her mother. How did this format affect your emotional connection to her? Did it feel intimate, unreliable, or both?
• Beverly Miller approaches the search with professionalism and restraint. How does her inner life complicate the idea of a “rescuer”?
• Lena becomes involved from afar. What does her role say about observation, intuition, and the power (or limits) of watching rather than acting?
• Which character did you feel closest to—and did that change as the novel progressed?
• How does the wilderness function in the novel: antagonist, mirror, refuge, or something else?
• Valerie is an experienced hiker, yet she still gets lost. What does the book suggest about control, preparation, and vulnerability?
• Did the novel romanticize survival, or did it strip it down to something harsher and more realistic
• The mother-daughter relationship is central even though Valerie’s mother is largely absent in real time. How does memory stand in for presence in the novel?
• What role does grief—personal, generational, or collective—play in the characters’ decisions?
• How do the characters carry the past with them into the present, sometimes without realizing it?
• The novel moves between multiple viewpoints and timelines. Did this heighten tension or slow it down for you?
• How did Gaige’s prose style—especially in Valerie’s sections—shape your reading experience?
• Were there moments where what was unsaid felt more important than what was explicit?
• What does Heartwood suggest about connection—between people, between humans and nature, and across distance?
• The search for Valerie involves strangers deeply invested in someone they don’t truly know. What motivates that kind of commitment?
• How does the novel reflect post-pandemic ideas of isolation, endurance, or reevaluating one’s life?
• What do you think the title Heartwood ultimately represents?
• Did the ending feel earned? Why or why not?
• What stayed with you after finishing the book—a scene, a line, a feeling?
• Who would you recommend this book to, and what would you tell them it’s really about?
• In what ways do memory and grief influence the characters’ actions?
• How do past experiences quietly surface in the present throughout the novel?
• Why do people become deeply invested in searching for someone they don’t know personally?
• How does the novel reflect themes of isolation, endurance, or reevaluating life after trauma?
• Did the ending feel satisfying or unsettling? Why?
• What image, scene, or line stayed with you after finishing the book?
• How would you describe this novel to someone deciding whether to read it?
• One word to describe how the book made you feel
• A passage that resonated with you
• Would you survive? What choice Valerie made would you have handled differently?

From Amity Gaige DISCUSSION QUESTIONS on Simon&Schuster’s web site:

1. Each of the three main characters in Heartwood find solace in nature. Lena loves birdwatching and foraging. For Valerie, long-distance hiking makes her feel “whole.” Bev thinks of the backcountry as her “mother.” When was the last time you really felt connected to nature?

2. Talk about how you felt as Valerie described her lostness. What do you think you would feel or do if you became lost in the outdoors?

3. Valerie writes letters to her mother while she is lost in the woods. Who would you write to and what would you want them to know?

4. What do you think about the novel’s connection between lostness and being motherless?

5. For many readers, Santo is a surprising favorite character. What did you think about his role in the investigation and his friendships with Valerie and Cody the warden?

6. Heartwood is as much about being lost as it is about being found. What times in your life have you been “lost” emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically, and who rescued you?

7. Heartwood was written during the pandemic and Lena was inspired by how difficult quarantine was for older people. Did reading Heartwood remind you of that difficult time? And was there anything you turned to, like reading, internet-sleuthing or hiking, that helped you get through it?

8. Though there are true stories of people going missing while hiking, there is also a vibrant and supportive trail community. The book is in many ways a celebration of the American wilderness. Did reading Heartwood make you want to hike the Appalachian Trail?

New Words:

• Ativan: a prescription medication belonging to the benzodiazepine class, used primarily to treat anxiety disorders, acute agitation, and seizures
• Hasty Team: a small, highly trained, and fast-moving search and rescue (SAR) unit dispatched immediately to high-probability areas to locate missing persons or evidence
• Inamorato: a person's male lover
• Oeuvre: the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively
• Slattern: an untidy, slovenly woman
• Cytologist: one specializing in the study of cells; a pathologist using cytological techniques in the differential diagnosis of neoplasms.
• sui generis: unique
• Lugubriousness: especially : exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful
• Logomania: abnormal talkativeness

Book References:

• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
• When You Find My Body byD. Dauphinee
• When I Fell from the Sky by Juliane Koepcke
• Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Donn Fendler
• The Red and the Black by Stendhal

Good Quotes:

• First Line: Dear Mother, You used to call me Sparrow
• Last Line: I do not regret anything
• Up here, we tend to think of being lost as something you can be good at. Chp 1 Lt Bev
• loss of mental control is more dangerous than the lack of food or water. Chp 1 Lt Bev
• I don’t know which scares me more—being found by him, or being found by no one. Chp 3 Lt Bev
• without books, there was nothing but time. Chp 4 Lena

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book
• Author's Website
• Wikipedia-Author
• Amazon-Book
• Amazon-Author
• Barnes and Noble
• GoodReads-Book
• GoodReads-Author
• New York Times Review
• The Bossy Bookworm review
• Readers with Wrinkles blog
• BookReporter review
• Marmalade and Mustardseed book guide
• Station WSHU review
• Washington Independent Review of Books
• California Review of Books
• Yale University
• YouTube-Gaiges interview with Jenna Bush Hagar
• NPR related article on How do families of missing people cope with the uncertainty? Not about the book, but about the subject matter of missing people.
• Geraldine Larday’s journal