About this item
From grief to reckoning to reflection to solace, a marine biologist shares the solo journey she took - through war-ravaged Eastern Europe, Israel, and beyond - to find peace after her fianc suffered a fatal attack by a box jellyfish in Thailand.In the summer of 2002, Shannon Leone Fowler, a twenty-eight-year-old marine biologist, was backpacking with her fianc and love of her life, Sean. Sean was a tall, blue-eyed, warmhearted Australian, and he and Shannon planned to return to Australia after their excursion to Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand. Their plans, however, were devastatingly derailed when a box jellyfish - the most venomous animal in the world - wrapped around Sean's leg, stinging and killing him in a matter of minutes as Shannon helplessly watched. Rejecting the Thai authorities attempt to label Sean's death a "drunk drowning," Shannon ferried his body home to his stunned family - a family to which she suddenly no longer belonged. Shattered and untethered, Shannon's life paused indefinitely so that she could travel around the world to find healing. Travel had forged her relationship with Sean, and she hoped it could also aid in processing his death. Though Sean wasn't with Shannon, he was everywhere she went - among the places she visited were Owicim, Poland (the site of Auschwitz) ; war-torn Israel; shelled-out Bosnia; poverty-stricken Romania; and finally to Barcelona, where she first met Sean years before. Ultimately, Shannon had to confront the ocean after her life's first great love took her second great love away. Cheryl Strayed's Wild meets Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk in this beautiful, profoundly moving memorial to those we have lost on our journeys and the unexpected ways their presence echoes in all places - and voyages - big and small.
About the Author
Shannon Leone Fowler is a marine biologist, writer, and single mother of three young children. Since her doctorate on Australian sea lions, she's taught marine ecology in the Bahamas and Galápagos, led a university course on killer whales in the San Juan Islands, spent seasons as the marine mammal biologist on board ships in both the Arctic and Antarctic, taught graduate students field techniques while studying Weddell seals on the Ross Ice Shelf, and worked as a science writer at National Public Radio in Washington DC. Originally from California, she currently lives in London. Traveling with Ghosts is her first book.
