Allister (English, St. Olaf College) examines works by six authors which fuse autobiography, literary nonfiction, and environmental literature into a distinct form of "grief narrative." Each of these authors "... begins in depression that shadows grief; each comes to put an end to depression, to move through mourning, by turning observations and stories of the external world into a narrative that heals." The six works featured are Sue Hubbell's A Country Year , Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge , Bill Barich's Laughing in the Hills , William Least Heat-Moons' Blue Highways , Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard , and Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Spaces . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)