All the Way to the Tigers

1

India, 2011

We haven t moved in what seems like hours. It s late afternoon in January, and I can see my breath. Our jeep is at a crossroads where my driver and guide sit in silence. Ajay is listening. His eyes dart, skimming the woods. But mainly he listens. I m listening too. Though I m not sure what I m supposed to hear. I ve got two horsehair blankets across my legs, a hot-water bottle cooling in my lap, and a scarf wrapped around my head. I m shivering, not only from the cold but also perhaps from a fever, and coughing from a virus that s sunk deep into my chest. As the sun is going down, a family of langur monkeys gathers in the trees.

Something rustles the bush, and there s chatter above. A bird with turquoise-and-black feathers that look like an evening gown flits through the forest. Another with two long purple plumes perches on a low-hanging branch. Ajay points to the scat of an elephant in the road, but it s a tame elephant, one of four used by the rangers to patrol these woods. A jackal bursts from the brush and crosses our path. But the tiger eludes us. It is the tiger everyone comes to see. Not the snake-eating hawk, the spotted deer, the wild boar. It s all about the tiger.

Sudhir, our driver, wants to push on, but Ajay motions for him to be patient. Ajay is still listening. It is almost dusk. The other jeeps have called it a day. In fact there were very few. I ve seen almost no tourists. I am alone with my driver and guide in this jeep that holds eight. It s getting colder, almost freezing as the darkness settles in. I am in the jungle, sick and cold, with blankets wrapped around my thighs, searching for tigers. We ve been out for days without a sign, but Ajay and Sudhir want to persist. It has become a point of pride. I ve seen beautiful birds, I tell them. White-spotted and sambar deer. I ve seen a jackal race down the road and monkeys, mocking us from trees. I don t need to see more. But it seems that I am the one thing in this jungle

Mary Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels Gateway to the Moon, The Jazz Palace, A Mother's Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone. Morris is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Mary Morris s All the Way to the Tigers is a travel memoir and quest. Alluringly written in short, meditative chapters, it whizzes back and forth between America and India. . . . Fascinating.
The New York Times Book Review
 
The best travel memoirs offer readers three pleasures woven together: accounts of what I saw, how I came to understand myself better and what I learned about the world and Morris memoir doesn t skimp on any of them.
Nancy Pearl, NPR
 
The author of the classic travelogue Nothing to Declare this time ventures to Pench, India, in part to glimpse the apex predator she s long dreamed of, in part to prove that a recent injury won t end the habit of far-flung travel that has nourished her for six decades. The resulting memoir wry and wistful reveals a woman finally comfortable with her own imperfections and, when she gets the chance, unafraid to look a tiger in the eye.
O, The Oprah Magazine
 
The compelling why and how of jumpstarting her epic adventure launches a multilayered story unfurled in 100 brief chapters like little pearls expertly strung on an intricate necklace . . . Morris delivers with grace and grit.
Forbes

Fact: Mary Morris is the best travel writer alive. I am humbled by her skill at using the bones of a journey to get to the heart of herself. She's a master of the craft.
Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things
 
A travel narrative in the tradition of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert.
Read It Forward
 
Morris is frank, funny, and incisive as she revisits her 'free ranging' Chicago childhood, single motherhood, and her start as writer, and expounds on tigers in the world and in the imagination . . . Morris epigrammatic memoir is a finely wrought mosaic of unexpected and provocative pieces cunningly fit together.
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