Mush: from sled dogs to celiac the scenic detour of my life

When Tara Caimi was twenty-eight years old she moved from Pennsylvania to Utah to support her boyfriends dog mushing dream. Nick was confident and courageous outgoing and adventurous--everything Tara was not. Tara had always suffered from anxiety-related ailments but in Utah her health steadily deteriorated. Living with Nick revealed some unexpected lifestyle differences and the culture she encountered rendered her a perpetual outsider. The only comfort she found was in her surrogate family of sled dogs. As personal failures piled up amidst desperate feelings of isolation her health declined to a point she could no longer ignore. Mush is the story of Taras journey toward someone elses dream and the lifesaving self-discovery it revealed. Tara Caimis Mush does not pretend. Its an unsparing memoir written with seductive honesty and few favours paid to the writers ego. Caimis story picks its way through the half-lit valleys of her wilderness years as she follows a dream not her own. This is the sort of truth that plenty of us spend our lives avoiding but she tackles it with a workmanlike lack of sentimentality. Caimi is a likeable and refreshing narrator whose prose allows the reader space to reflect. -- Liz Ann Bennett editor and publisher of Oh Comely magazine One of the things I admire most about Tara Caimis memoir Mush is what it is not. Mush follows Taras life as it slowly spins out of control and shes sucked into a downward spiral of disappointment stress and physical illness that nearly kills her. But Tara is a survivor. She lives to write about the whole mess--with candor and with only the best intentions. Without bitterness self-pity and negativity. Mush is not another poor-me memoir. -- Sara Pritchard author of Help Wanted: Female Adventuring does not come easily to us all as we learn by following Tara Caimi on her journey to mountainous Mormon country. Caimi in her engaging and honest memoir offers glimpses into the niche world of dog mushing while revealing that sometimes appreciation of someone elses dream doesnt require participation. -- Brandi Dawn Henderson Editor of Whereabouts: Stepping Out of Place and (T)here: Writings on ReturningsYoure going to want to tag along on this transformative trail that is Taras life. Sometimes shes the musher sometimes shes not--but she ended up right where she needed to be: at a desk to capture an adventure thats often as rough as the Utah terrain yet at other times sparkly and smooth as a twilight sled ride. Taras debut memoir bubbles with beautiful language that captures the breathtaking mountainous desert scenery that surrounds her and her writing is just as vivid when she describes whats happening on the inside--from her head to her heart to her gut. This Tara-in-transition is nothing short of courageous but she also is never afraid to show her vulnerabilities and never hesitates to stop even just for a moment to revel in childlike wonder as shes introduced to new places new people and new customs. Her words--her memories--bring these settings these characters to life. Herself included. Mush is a heartfelt story of dogs dirt roads and dreams--of health hope and home. -- Donna Talarico Founder & Publisher Hippocampus Magazine