Jill Frayne is the kind of author who makes you long to write and have a similar impact on others. That
Starting Out in the Afternoon is her first book--and the fact that she is, by trade, a therapist and not a journalist--is all the more remarkable. The silken beauty of her prose is as breathtaking as the Canadian landscapes she discovers and documents as part of a more-or-less spontaneous quest for inner peace. Take her description of something as mundane as the weather: "The sky cast over, the wind dropped and we went on in a different day, a hazy cheesecloth sky drawn across deep, easy swells." Or her description of a bird: "I spot a meadowlark in my binoculars dressed like a tiny leopard, his beak flexing like scissors."
Part journal, part travel diary, part history lesson, and part rumination on the outdoors, Starting Out in the Afternoon follows Frayne's travels from Ontario to the Yukon on the cusp of her daughter's adulthood and on the heels of Frayne's newly fractured love life. In addition to photographic descriptions of flora and fauna, we get Frayne's intuitive take on what makes us tick, laid out in language so sumptuous that it almost has a texture. And yet her words never feel forced or flashy for the sake of it. Rather, there's economy at work, thanks both to Frayne's rugged and spendthrift travel plans--she was writing alone in the woods a lot--and her keen ability to locate precisely the right word. Frayne's unblinking assessment of lovers and friends makes the book that much more intimate; it's hard to imagine anyone not relating to her unobstructed view of human life, nature, and our crucial interdependence. Many writers can describe mountains and lakes. Only a few, like Frayne, can make us feel them in our bones. --Kim Hughes
“It is a beautifully written book, marked by original language and disciplined prose, every page offering a memorable snapshot of the author’s often impossibly grand physical surroundings…. for anyone who loves the outdoors
Starting Out In the Afternoon is a trip worth taking.” --
The Ottawa Citizen
“
Starting Out in the Afternoon is a wonderfully written tale of a middle-aged woman’s journey through the wilds of Canada and Alaska. But the book, written in diary form, is more than a travelogue. Woven into the rich descriptions of rugged mountains, mammoth trees and powerful seas are the thoughts of a woman exploring her life’s journey…. The only downside to this work is that it makes the reader grieve for the fact that Frayne didn’t start publishing earlier in life.” --
The Toronto Sun
“Her sentences are spare, yet their images intense. Her eye is sharp.” --
The Edmonton Journal“
Starting Out in the Afternoon is Jilly Frayne’s clear-eyed memoir of the trek -- by car, sneaker and kayak -- that drew her to the Yukon, all the way from her home in southern Ontario and her career as a family therapist. In the end, she discovers that the toughest, most rewarding road trip is the one you take inside your own head and heart.” --
Chatelaine
“With verve, ambition and, it seems, very little fear, [Jill Frayne] conquered B.C.’s northern wilderness, bringing back stories of personal transformation at the mid-point of [her] life.” --
The Vancouver Sun“Frayne is very much an original, with a bracing, vibrant style fresh as a gust of northern wind. Her memoir of a mid-life trek into deep wilderness is less travelogue than soul-revealing confession, a cri du coeur riddled with the complex, pulsing veins of relationship -- not just with other people, but with that great and glorious enigma, the land…. Frayne writes early on that the initial idea for her journey was inspired by a Peter Gzowski interview on Morningside. How he would have loved this fresh, windy, woodsmoky piece of poetry, so full of passion and vulnerability. No doubt Frayne’s parents are immensely proud of their intrepid, inspired girl.” --
The Gazette (Montreal)
“This memoir of her travels is an involving, inspired balm for us armchair travellers.” --
The Toronto Star“Frayne’s account of her spiritual and physical journey is a fun, introspective look into the inner workings of a woman’s mind as she reflects on what has been and what is yet possible.” --
The Guelph Mercury“[A] well-crafted, tough-minded recounting of [Jill Frayne’s] voyage out and then inward . . . . Her metaphors enrich the journey and her personal reflections give the shock of recognition that hard-won truths can bring.” --
Quill and Quire
“[T]he writing is transcendental, ecstatic, as crisp and clear as Lake Superior in October. . . . As the daughter of June Callwood and Trent Frayne, she comes by it honestly, but genetics cannot explain the breath-taking sweep of her style, the depths of her insights. Through words as carefully chosen and necessary as survival gear, she journeys to the heart of her wild self.” -- Wayne Grady,
The Globe and Mail"This voyage of a middle-aged woman through Canada's wildest landscape is so well rendered that the readers longs to take the same journey. As Jill Frayne conquers her own fears, the landscape, which can be rough, cold and unforgiving, comes into focus as a warm, wonderful friend. Frayne writes so beautifully about her relationship with nature that the book becomes a detailed love story." -- Catherine Gildiner, author of
Too Close to the Falls"Jill Frayne's journeys into wilderness are like moving meditations, undertaken with awareness and respect, awash in wisdom, insight and the serenity that exists in the soul of the natural world. Travelling with her is, therefore, a transcendent experience." -- Alison Wearing, author of
Honeymoon in Purdah
