“I remember pacing up and down my room in an agony of worry because I really thought that my publisher would hate it and no one would read it,” confessed H Is for Hawk author Helen Macdonald in a recent phone interview with The Santa Barbara Independent. “So it’s all been a bit of a shock that it’s gone so well.” In fact, since publication in 2014, the book has been a New York Times best seller, was named Costa Book of the Year, and garnered Macdonald the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize.
It’s no wonder, really, as H Is for Hawk is a tantalizing, multipronged story that explores our relationship to nature, lays bare the grief of a loved one’s passing, and gives fascinating insight into the influential, troubled author T.H. White. Macdonald elaborated, “A woman said to me once, ‘This is a book that isn’t just for someone who’s interested in birds or had a big loss or someone who wants to know about the English countryside. This is a book for anyone who’s ever wanted to escape their life or any bad circumstances or bad times.’” In other words, everyone.
It’s a brilliant book, and I love that readers have been so receptive to a nonfiction, semi-historical, biographical nature book.