Today, bookpleasures.comhas the pleasure of speaking with Tad Crawford, author of thecompelling new psychological novel, A Woman in the Wild. 

Set against the backdropof a remote mountain retreat, the novel introduces us to Thea Firth,a therapist seeking solace from her own personal trauma—namely, apainful estrangement from her daughter following her ex-husband’sabuse. 

Her quest for personalhealing is quickly complicated by the arrival of a mysterious newpatient: Lucas Lamont, a “wild man” who has been captured afterliving in the wilderness with a bear. 

This central relationshipbecomes a powerful lens through which the novel explores the fragileboundaries between civilization and wildness, and the crucialdistinction between what it means to heal versus to truly transform. 

But the story reaches farbeyond its central pair, delving into the weight of intergenerationaltrauma and the inadequacy of language in the face of profoundexperience.

Ultimately, A Woman in the Wild is a profound meditationon loss, the possibility of connection beyond words, and thedifficult journey toward gratitude and acceptance of what cannot bechanged. 

Good day Tad and thanksfor taking part in our interview.

Norm: Your novel, A Womanin the Wild, centers on Thea, a therapist who retreats to aninstitute to heal her own past, only to find herself drawn to theprofound mystery of a silent “wild man” found living with a bear. 

It’s a powerful exploration of healing beyond words, the tensionbetween civilization and the wild, and the difficult search forforgiveness. 

What was the initial spark for the story? Were you moredrawn to Thea’s internal crisis as a therapist, or the externalmystery of a man who rejects the human world?

Tad: Bears appeared in myfirst novel, A Floating Life. In the way an image works in theunconscious, I continued to write about bears after that novel waspublished. 

In one short story a grieving man sees a bear digging atthe boundary of his field. The man decides to take a nap on his patioand wakes to find the bear towering over him. But the bear is gentleand talkative. 

After a conversation that undermines the man’s viewof his situation, the bear says, “Come, follow me.” Faced withthe terror of remaining as he is or the unknown dangers of followingthe bear into the wild, the man follows. 

That story existed therapistThea Firth leaves her city life because of a painful estrangementfrom her daughter. 

When Thea goes to the mountains, to the Institutefor Healing and Transformation, she arrives at almost the same timethat the wild man (later called the bear man and finally named asLucas Lamont) is captured in the forest and brought to the institute. 

Thea takes a strong interest in this strange man who has also escapedfrom the normal bounds of life. Finally, her mentor and the directorof the institute, Andreas Henniger, offers her the case of the wildman. So, she undertakes his cure and, by that process, begins her ownhealing.

Norm: The novel contraststhe rigid institute with the untamed forest. Is Lucas’s journeyinto the “wild” a mental breakdown, or is it a search for a moreauthentic state of being?

How does Thea’s ownjourney—leaving her structured life for the wilderness of theinstitute—mirror Lucas’s on an emotional level?

Tad: On an emotional levelthere are parallels between Lucas and Thea. When captured, Lucas islocked in a windowless room containing nothing he could use to harmhimself. 

Thea looks at him though the one-way window in the door andis outraged at his treatment. That she feels a strong connection tohim isn’t surprising because both seek to escape emotional tormentsgrief for Lucas; estrangement and guilt for Thea) by going to thenatural world. 

Norm: The story linkstrauma across generations—from the Holocaust to domestic abuse.What is the connection you’re making between historical atrocitiesand private, familial pain?

Does the novel propose away to break these cycles, or does it suggest they are an inescapablepart of the human condition?

Tad: Moritz, the youngAustrian who assists Thea in caring for Lucas, is very much caught ina generational trauma. His grandfather was a guard in a concentrationcamp where terrible atrocities were committed. 

The grandfather musthave had a role in those atrocities, yet he never speaks of whathappened. This silence suffocates the life of Moritz’s father. 

Moritz, in the spiritual quest that brings him to monasteries,shrines, and the institute, believes that by his actions he canchange the family history, the suffocation passed down thegenerations. 

In a similar way, Thea seeks to understand the sexualabuse of her daughter by her second husband. 

She sees how thehusband’s father was also a sexual abuser and, although she can’tknow how many generations have been infected in this way, she usesthis knowledge in her efforts to lessen her feelings of failure,guilt, and loss.

Norm: The bear is apowerful, almost mythical presence. What does the bear represent inthe novel—untamed nature, a spiritual guide, or the physicalembodiment of grief?

What is the significanceof the fact that Lucas’s connection is with a potentially dangerouspredator, rather than a more benign animal?

Tad: In A Woman in theWild, the bear is a powerful absence. Lucas’ time in the wild withthe bear will be the subject of a prequel in which Lucas, likeOrpheus, seeks the beloved he has lost to death. But the bear is amystery.

Thea wonders on her hikes whether the bear is near her,moving with her but unseen. This makes the bear feel like theunconscious, rich and powerful but hidden. 

So the bear, who can walkupright like a human and rise from the near death of hibernation likeLazarus, is both a guide and the carrier of the sacred mysteries ofnature. 

Yet, as you point out, the bear can also be dangerous in thesame way that nature itself can be dangerous. The journeys to escapegrief or guilt possess not only promise but also risks andchallenges. 

To imagine such journeys only as benign would be tolessen the human condition and predicament.

Norm: The “talking cure”is central to Thea’s profession, yet the story’s central figureis silent. What are you exploring about the limits of language in theface of profound experience or trauma?

Does Lucas’s art, oreven his physical presence, become a more powerful form ofcommunication than words could be?

Tad: In the face of grief,language has its limits. It can’t undo the past, return thevanished loved one, calm the torment of loss. In his choice to gowith the bear, Lucas moves beyond the human. 

His grief locks himwithin himself. What use is a voice to speak when the pain isunbearable? 

He goes with the bear, because, instinctively, he feels ahealing power in the largeness of the bear and in nature itself. Ashe follows the bear through the forests and confronts the coming ofwinter and the bear’s impending hibernation, he also moves within. 

Thea, in encountering the silent Lucas, makes a connection alien tothe talk therapy on which she relied and in which she believed. 

Shewrestles with the question of whether returning him to what we expectof the human would even be a cure. And her efforts to help anotherultimately are uplifting, and healing, for her.

Norm: Much of the novelinvolves characters simply watching each other. What is the power ofsilent, non-judgmental witnessing in the act of healing?

The infrared camera firstcaptured Lucas with “invisible light.” Is this a metaphor for thetherapist’s job: to see what is hidden in the dark?

Tad: “Invisible light”is a way to see beyond the surfaces, to see what can’t be seen.That is quest of therapy, to help the patient bring to the light ofawareness what was previously hidden. 

By seeing more, andincorporating these insights into conscious awareness, the patientgrows in the therapeutic process. 

If the therapist is directive,judgmental, impatient, caught in their own complexes, then thetemenos—the sacred space in which the patient can trust andchange—is truncated and may ultimately no longer be a place wherethe patient can trust and live fully. 

That’s why it’s soimportant to be non-judgmental, to watch to allow. It reminds me ofJohn Milton’s poem titled “On His Blindness” in which the finalline is, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” 

The therapiststands and waits in service to a more meaningful and deeper sight forthe patient.

Norm: Thea’s love forher daughter Delphina is a source of immense pain. What does thenovel explore about love that is rejected or cannot be expressed?

Is self-forgivenesspossible for Thea without first receiving forgiveness from herdaughter?

Tad: One challenge facingThea is whether it is possible to be forgiven when the naturalconnection of mother to daughter has been severed. Especially if, ashere, the daughter Delphina has good reasons for her belief that hermother failed her. 

It would be like trying to gain the forgiveness ofsomeone who has died except that Delphina is alive and unwilling toforgive. What is Thea to do with her love, her disappointment, herloss, her guilt? 

Andreas Henniger, as Thea’s mentor and director ofthe institute, sees a way in which the energy that has made her leaveher life can be harnessed and used to alleviate her inner suffering. 

She expresses concern for the conditions under which Lucas Lamont isnot only confined but also drugged. Andreas, to her surprise, putsher in charge of healing Lucas. 

If she can’t find forgiveness inher relationship with Delphina, she can channel her energies towardanother person in distress. She does that with her whole being. Toact selflessly in the service of another gives purpose to Thea. 

Itgives her a way forward in her life. It isn’t the same as receivingforgiveness from her daughter and resuming their relationship, butshe does when she can to help another and her sense of purposegradually affects her feelings of guilt and sorrow. 

Norm: The novel presentsseveral men who are fractured in different ways: the abuser (Hugh),the silent wild man (Lucas), the spiritual seeker (Moritz). Are youexploring a crisis in modern masculinity?

How does Hugh’s father,Glenn, with his performative strength, represent a root of thisbrokenness?

Tad: Glenn, a man in his60s, takes the whole family outside so they can watch him jump rope.That “performative strength” speaks of his need for connection,his lack of wholeness. 

But the connection doesn’t come through thetalking cure, whether with a therapist or a loved one. It comes fromcontrolling others who must serve his egotism, his narcissism. Therecan be no happy ending to this. 

The challenging question is where itbegan. Glenn sexually abuses his young daughter (Hugh’s sister) andHugh becomes the abuser of Thea’s daughter. But what began thisinsufficiency of self that leads to domination and abuse of others? 

How far can we see back into the generations that created behaviorand needs like these? Our vision is limited, but we can sense thatHugh is both abuser and victim in that he grew up in a home where hisfather abused his younger sister. 

Glenn, in his lack of connection,does represent a “root of this brokenness.” Lucas and Moritz arealso damaged. While the healing they seek may go beyond the norms ofwhat we expect, it doesn’t harm anyone else. 

Lucas takes his griefto the wild. Moritz quests for a spiritual solution to thegenerational challenges in his own family, the legacy of the deathcamps and immense suffering. All of these men face the challenge ofhealing and growth. Not all of them are capable of meeting thatchallenge.   

Norm: Andreas is both arespected psychoanalyst and a man who believes he shared a body witha psychic lover. What are you saying about the relationship betweenmodern psychology and older, more mystical forms of understanding thesoul?

Does his character suggestthat a true healer needs to embrace both the rational and theseemingly irrational?

Tad: As Andreas shows inhis toast for the institute’s Thanksgiving dinner, he values thespiritual contributions of many societies that thrived at differenttimes. In this, he incorporates into his therapy more than theapproach of a single school of therapy. 

He is open to more mysticalapproaches to the soul. That a lover enters his body with her beingmay be made possible by this openness. Of equal importance, I think,is that when he no longer had the desire to be present for hispatients, he ended his therapy practice. 

He didn’t continue to gothrough the motions. He took his desire for health to the institute,a new direction for him but a position that allowed him to heal asthe leader of the institute. 

Certainly, he embraces both the rationaland seemingly irrational with an inner spark that allows him to see,for example, how Thea and Lucas might each benefit from Thea’sconcern for Lucas. Even his gift for Lucas of a small, white statueof the Buddha shows his expansive vision of healing. 

Norm: Where can ourreaders find out more about you and A Woman in the Wild? 

Tad: My website,tadcrawford.com, discusses my background, unusual career path, andmix of fiction and nonfiction books. 

On social media I’m active onTikTok (@authortadcrawford), Instagram (tadcrawfordauthor), FacebookAuthorTadCrawford), and LinkedIn (Tad Crawford). 

Searching for myname on YouTube brings up the video “Art, Money, Fiction” aboutmy overall career and the Living the Next Chapter podcast titled “AWoman in the Wild” in which I discuss the novel with host DaveCampbell. 

Norm: As we wind up ourinterview, the novel ends without a neat resolution for Thea orLucas. Why did you choose to leave their futures uncertain?

At the end, Thea learns totrust in the “mercy” of love, not just its “power.” What isthe distinction, and is this the novel’s central lesson?

Tad: In my creativeprocess, I begin with certain thoughts and feelings about arelationship or situation. I don’t know the future, nor do mycharacters. 

The future unfolds as the present is plumbed. What hasbeen submerged in the unconscious rises to become visible. I suddenlysee into the characters in a way I couldn’t only a day (andcertainly a month) earlier. 

Likewise, the characters are in thesuspense of the present. Thea has no idea when she feels outrageabout the treatment of Luke that she will be given him as a patient.Nor does she know what to do with such an unusual case. 

She feels herway forward. Lucas, even without speaking, is obviously movingforward in large part because of Thea’s intervention. Eachdevelopment in the novel is a discovery for me as the author. 

Thiswas especially true when I circulated the first draft of the novel toa group of readers. Sitting with their insights at last enabled me toput the novel into its final form. 

If I had power as an author, nodoubt I would know from the beginning what the future would hold forme and my characters. 

But if I am willing to trust that what isneeded will be forthcoming—from the unconscious, from nature, fromthe generosity of those who respond to what is written--then Ibelieve in what can best be called mercy. 

I didn’t intend to writea novel containing a lesson, but that would be the lesson thatemerges from the lives and interactions of Thea, Lucas, Andreas, andthe other characters in the novel.  

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your endeavors