I first heard of this book because at one point it was on Obama’s list of summer reads, or something to that effect. Other books that Obama had recently highlighted, like The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, I’d read and enjoyed, but to be honest I really didn’t have any intention of reading this. However, a confluence of events, including someone gifting me a used copy and it being on an audiobook display at the library, prompted me to try. I tend to listen to books that I’m less inclined to sit and read, but want to have read. Enter H is for Hawk. I didn’t have any clue what this was about before starting it. Straight up, all I had was an assumption that hawks were somehow involved…and for some reason a vague inclination that it was a mystery novel, which is, it turns out, utterly incorrect.

This story, written and read by Helen Macdonald (which was cool – I always love an author-narrated audiobook), is more or less an autobiography (or memoir – what’s the actual difference there?). Helen has always been obsessed with hawks, she’s trained many of them in the past, but the sudden death of her father pushes her to decide to train a goshawk, a notably difficult (perhaps the most difficult) breed. This work is a reflection on the first year or so after her father’s death, mixing the challenges of training the goshawk with the challenges of dealing with loss and grief…and throwing in some childhood memories and a bit of intertwining a life/case study of British author T.H. White (best known for writing The Once and Future King, a novel that I personally really love) and his own experiences with training a goshawk, as reported in his book, The Goshawk.

I know this received a lot of awards and recognition as a study of bereavement, but I have to say, I don’t think it was for me. It definitely would have ended up on my DNF pile if I wasn’t listening to it. I do not know if this is partially because I wasn’t super into reading it to start. Or perhaps partially because I just read a memoir on grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, that was (in my opinion at least) considerably better, but even if I hadn’t just read that, I don’t think I would have been enamored of this book. The language was classic, elaborate and evocative, but many times it leaned a little too towards mesmerizing…in the zoning out/sleep inducing sense of the word. I definitely found myself zoning out more often than not. And when I was able to bring my thoughts back to the audiobook, I never felt like I missed anything (not really a great sign, I don’t think). Relatedly, this book was super description heavy, with more side tangents and sojourns than I felt like I could care about (from her father’s plane spotting notebooks to the bad weather during a certain week to the myriad ways White’s childhood messed up his life). Things just seemed scattered and only tangentially connected. And though I understand that mirrored her post-loss thoughts/feelings, it just didn’t hit home for me. There was just something about it that prevented me from really being emotionally connected. Last, I really felt like her perceived connection between herself and White was…odd, to say the least. I wasn’t sure I followed how her reasoning for how her goshawk training as a coping mechanism for her father’s death connected to White’s [way more inexperienced] efforts to train a goshawk that [in Helen’s opinion] was his coping mechanism for his horrible childhood and sexual attractions. I mean, maybe she didn’t totally get it either, because she mentions a couple times the feeling of him “haunting” her own experience and, really, the grieving process is so individual and this is just the form hers happened to take. But still the intensity of the focus on that aspect of her journey and how large a part of the book it is (though less a part than her own training journey, it did seem to be more present than the parts that were actually about her grief/father)…it felt weird to me.

There were definitely some lovely moments and I think it’s worth pointing them out. Like I mentioned, the writing itself is mature and clearly comes from a well-educated woman in full control of the language. And some of the points she made are a most recognizable mix of the universal and personal, like her description of the loneliness of grief and the separation you feel from everyone and everything. Even if you know others have experienced the exact same things, none of that knowledge or their assistance can help. Also, her thoughts on the narcissism of the bereaved, the feeling that everything seems to be coming from you or is your fault/responsibility (even though that is likely not the case) because you are so wrapped up in yourself/your situation that you cannot see outside of it, is so insightful. And her exploration of the differences between hardening your heart and not caring at all, and how they are not the same (particularly related to the part of the hawk’s training that involves killing its prey), is similarly interesting to read.

Overall, I can recognize why this book appealed to and impressed so many, but it just was not my cup of tea and I think that there are other books I’d recommend before this one to anyone dealing with grief and loss.