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Outside Passage: A Memoir of an Alaskan Childhood Audiobook
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Publisher Description
When Julia Scully was seven years old, her father committed suicide, and she and her sister were sent to an orphanage. Julia sought comfort in the rituals of the orphanage—learning to knit, roller-skating after dinner, listening to One Man's Family on the radio—and tried to adapt. But two years later, emotionally damaged by the isolation and brutality of the orphanage, the girls followed their mother to the near-wilderness of the gold-mining territory north of Nome, Alaska, where she had leased a roadhouse in the tiny settlement of Taylor. Julia had no idea what to expect when she arrived, but to her surprise she found a healing power in the stark beauty of the vast tundra—the summer wildflowers and berries, the reindeer, foxes, and wolves. Later she reveled in the boisterous, chaotic boomtown atmosphere that prevailed when thousands of American troops descended on Nome at the outbreak of World War II.
A lyrical and affecting memoir of those years, Outside Passage is simultaneously an emotional account of a young girl's first steps into adulthood and a unique portrait of a vanished frontier life.
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“Irresistible. Told in a spare luminous voice…Thesense of place is sharp and clear as the Alaskan air itself, evoked in the icyslap of the Bering Sea, the crystalline streams tumbling over salmon-coloredpebbles, the Alaskan malamutes that run in packs along the frozen, ruttedstreets…It’s a rare delight to find a book in which the setting and voice soperfectly mesh.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“A simple reminder of the immense power of a child’s love, which can last through terrible neglect.”
— Time -
“In this stunning memoir, Julia Scully recounts her exotic childhood in Alaska, where a ‘stark…treeless landscape extends on and on in every direction’…That she gained such a richness of experience from such a cutoff place is one of the delights of this miraculous book.”
— Elle -
“Outside Passage is notable as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does…Outside Passage paradoxically tells far more—and is far more modern—than its gushing, revelation-crammed counterparts.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review -
“Beautifully written, understated prose…A perceptive and sensitive account.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Will this be the Angela’s Ashes of Alaska?…A memorable expression of a difficult life.”
— Booklist -
“This chronology of a hard and unusual childhood offers a good snapshot of the struggles of a Depression-era family in one of the more remote outposts in America.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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A 1999 New York Times Notable Book for Nonfiction
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About Julia Scully
Julia Scully was born in Seattle and moved with her mother and sister to Alaska before the outbreak of World War II. She attended Nome High School, graduated from Stanford, and came to New York to work in the magazine business. She was editor of Modern Photography for twenty years and was also the codiscoverer of the now-renowned body of photographic portraits by Mike Disfarmer. The author or editor of several books, she lives in Manhattan.
About Celeste Lawson
Celeste Lawson is an Earphones Award winner and Audie Award nominee. She is the recording studio director for the Talking Books Program at the Library of Congress’ National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. She was a dancer and an actor before finding her niche in the intriguing, challenging, and extremely satisfying world of narration. In Silver Spring, Maryland, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and cat, she practices yoga and continues to dance. Celeste has also recorded for Blackstone Audio under the name C. M. Hébert.