Always, Rachel

Starred review from January 30, 1995
Rachel Carson (1907-1964), author of The Silent Spring, has been celebrated as the pioneer of the modern environmental movement. Although she wrote no autobiography, she did leave letters, and those she exchanged--sometimes daily--with Dorothy Freeman, some 750 of which are collected here, are perhaps more satisfying than an account of her own life. In 1953, Carson became Freeman's summer neighbor on Southport Island, Me. The two discovered a shared love for the natural world--their descriptions of the arrival of spring or the song of a hermit thrush are lyrical--but their friendship quickly blossomed, as each realized she had found in the other a kindred spirit. To read this collection is like eavesdropping on an extended conversation that mixes the mundane events of the two women's family lives with details of Carson's research and writing and, later, her breast cancer. Readers will inevitably wonder about the nature of the women's relationship; editor Martha Freeman, Dorothy's granddaughter, believes that the correspondents' initial caution regarding the frankly romantic tone of their letters led them to destroy some. Whether the relationship was sexual, theirs was a deeply loving friendship, and reading their letters leaves a sense of wonder that they felt so free to give themselves this gift. ``Never forget, dear one, how deeply I have loved you all these years,'' Carson wrote less than a year before her death. And if, as Carson believed, ``immortality through memory is real,'' few who read these letters will forget these remarkable women and their even more remarkable bond. Photos. 25,000 first printing.