Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills

by Lisa Dale Norton

Book Overview

As seen through the eyes of dreaming child--and the experienced eyes of a wounded woman who returns home to heal herself--Hawk Flies Above offers a natural history of a place and a soul set on the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312168616
• ISBN13: 9780312168612
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Hawk Flies Above:Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills

Having taken several of Lisa Dale Norton's writing classes (she is a superb teacher by the way, who helps you dig below the surface of your own memories to be a better writer), I was eager to see if she put into practice what she teaches. She does. "Hawk Flies Above" is a journey not only for the author but the reader. The power of her prose creates images not soon forgotten. Nebraska was never one of those places high on my list to visit, but Norton brings it to life and imbues it with rare beauty. "Hawk Flies Above" is a feast of words. And while there are places I would like to have more detail, that can be said of most things I read. This is a beautiful story of healing and courage.

A Healing Journey

In this lovely, lyrical memoir, we journey with Norton as she "lies close in to the land, skin to sand, bone to wind." By climbing with her through wounded landscapes--the Sandhills and her own heart--we also find a place of safety, become whole. That's what memoir is about... to find courage, heal ourselves in fellow travelers' stories.

A Good Book About Life, Place, and A Healed Heart

Lisa Dale Norton writes about place. She writes about how place affects her, how place slowly and patiently healed her, about the wind, the water, the plants, the birds and the people of a certain place--the Nebraska Sandhills, filling the entire northcental part of Nebraska. And she writes even more specifically about Ericson, Nebraska, and her family summer home, the Big Six Country Club on Lake Ericson. She writes lyrically about how much she loves the Sandhills, about the nature of the Sandhills and how she knows that she is only a secondary character is this vast hilly, sandy, treeless and marshy prairie. Interspersed between the stages of who she was and is are lovely vignettes from her notebooks about the unchanged, here, and the changing, there. By the end of the book, she wonders how long the water table will support the people she loves and the landscape she is passionate about. But she also writes her own story, that of feeling abandoned by her mother as a young teen, about being attacked, raped and left for dead in her twenties and about her healing and regaining trust. "The things we do in our twenties and thirties are pilgrimages to find lost pieces of our youth." After years away from The Big Six Country Club, she returns to write her master's thesis on Ericson and The Hungry Horse Saloon. Although she writes in her journals and photographs life, she drifts through that summer and fall not knowing that she must wait and just be in that place for the healing to commence. Norton writes of equating growth with movement and finally realizing that inner landscape must be cultivated with stillness. Norton's Notebooks are filled with prose poetry (the in-between vignettes). In "Dragonflies," she writes "Their gossamer wings moved like wind through riverside grass. Sometimes in flight, a dragonfly would coast, riding a current but only for a moment. I dreamed those magical creatures were relics from another age and I was some clever character, kneeling at water's edge gathering flowers." In her narrative, she writes, "What succor is it, then, that rises from remembering, from the stories I tell? Slowly I come to believe that the mere telling itself is food for my soul. Story nurtures. I tell a story and I feel more whole."--as it is with us all. Yet this is not a sweet and sentimental book. Norton writes with an edge of expectation, moving us forward to see the beginning of healing. She writes of the history of the land and the people as well as her family, long time Nebraska citizens. She writes, "What purpose do these stories serve, which rise from my childhood and haunt me as I travel these hills? I can not give up the belief that these memories, burning like lamps in the night shine through to me for a reason. Could it be a simple as the power of those things we love rising to remind us that we must name them? If I do not name those things I love, who will know what is worth saving and what can be let go?" This is a good bo

It was if I was there - every chapter!

Anyone who grew up in Nebraska, either in the Sandhills or anywhere along the Platte River would identify with this book. She is a wonderful descriptive writer and takes you to the place she wants you to see. It also brings to mind long ago memories of times you may have experienced by the similarities associated with her writings. A friend gave me this book and as they say, "The best friend is one who gives you a new book as a gift". She was, of course, right. I loved it.

powerful...about the healing power of place

This book was so much more than I had anticipated. I initially bought the book because it's about an area of the country that I know well. I found it to be a moving narrative about recovery and growth. It's about coming back from the edge. The author does a masterful job of explaining the healing power of home. I look forward to what she writes of next. This is a book by a woman that will be very readable by women, but not limited to women. Highly recommended.