cover image A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning

A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning

Gretel Ehrlich, James Ed. Cohen. Pantheon Books, $21 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-679-42550-2

In 1991 the author of this lyrical narrative of resurrection was struck by lightning near her Wyoming ranch. The effects of this electrocution were long-lasting, requiring intensive medical attention for the physical and mental trauma that included sensory impairment. In her chronicle of two years of healing, naturalist Ehrlich ( The Solace of Open Spaces ) traces the abrupt changing of her life from ``before the negative charge shot down from cloud to ground.'' Her love for animals and the earth was a support, as was the care of an intuitive cardiologist and the friends and family who rallied around as her failing marriage finally ended. Ehrlich's inspirational self-discovery calls attention to other lightning survivors as, ``carved from a ruined body,'' she returns to the ranch with new life. (June)