Review: "The Twenty" by Marianne Bohr

 

The Twenty by Marianne Bohr
Published June 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★

Across Corsica with a backpack! I'll be honest: I had not heard of the GR20 before picking up this book—I had barely heard of Corsica. But I love a hiking memoir, and I've been meaning to read Bohr's first book for ages, so...off to Corsica.

The Twenty takes Bohr and her husband from their home in the US, on the verge of retirement, across the ocean to the rocky, sunny, sometimes tempestuous landscapes of the GR20. Billed as one of Europe's toughest hiking trails, it's not for the faint of heart. Chains and scrambles and scree; scraped skin and bruises—it sounds like some of the difficulty comes down to your age and starting shape, although deaths are not unheard of, as a number of places present risks for nasty falls, and the weather can be fickle. Bohr and her husband went with a guided group, tucking recent health concerns in their back pockets and hoping that their previous hiking experience and determination would do the job.

Bohr weaves in snippets from her childhood—the oldest of eleven in a determinedly Catholic household, she describes being expected to be a smiling second mother of sorts...with high academic (and domestic) expectations but low athletic expectations. It sounds like those expectations dogged her somewhat for much of the trail: how long does it take to unlearn the lesson that you're one thing and cannot be another?

I'm reminded a little bit, in Bohr's descriptions of her group and the way she and her husband interacted with them, of Gail Storey's I Promise Not to Suffer. I've never really considered doing a group hiking trip (I did end up with something of a group on the Camino, but it was informal, and I started and ended alone), but altogether this sounds like a wonderful—if exhausting—experience. The GR20 probably isn't going to be high on my priority list (I'm more into woods than rocks), but oh my this does make my feet itchy.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.