You’re in for a ride …
Catherine Forster is an artist, filmmaker, and writer living in the Pacific Northwest … at the moment. Her work and love of travel have led her to six continents, including Sub-Saharan African, the source of her childhood fantasies. She still holds a fondness for Tarzan, but when trekking in the bush, hiking mountain trails, or exploring a new city, she prefers the company of her beloved husband Kevin.
CHASING TARZAN began as a series of drawings. Initially, I was unsure of their purpose, whether their future home was a gallery or a book. When words married with drawings, the project found its home in memoir. CHASING TARZAN is a story about bullying and the role of imagination when there is no other means of escape.
Memory is fickle, but defines who we are. It’s not fact but can reveal truth. I am the second child of eight children. We grew up together, lived under the same roof, shared vacations, watched fireworks together on the July 4th, hunted Easter eggs––my Dad’s home movies reveal we did so––but we did not have the same childhood. The book excavates my childhood, and though my girlhood transpired in a different era, as a mother of two girls, I know the themes of this book are just as relevant today. Maybe more so. What people are saying: REVIEWS
SYNOPSIS
In the 1960s, a relentless school bully makes Catherine’s life a living hell. She retreats inward, relying on a rich fantasy life––swinging through the jungle wrapped in Tarzan’s protective arms––and fervent prayers to a God she does not trust. She fasts until she feels faint, she ties a rough rope around her waist as penance, hoping God will see her worthy of His help.
As the second of eight children, Catherine is Mommy’s little helper, and like Mommy, Catherine is overwhelmed. The bullying and the adult responsibilities together foment her anger. She starts smacking her siblings, and becomes her younger sister’s nemesis. Spooked by who she is becoming, Catherine vows to escape for real, before she hurts someone—or herself.
Catherine finds salvation in a high school exchange program: new town, new school, new family, new persona. A passport celebrity. In New Zealand, nobody knows her history or her fears. Except for her Kiwi “mum,” who sees through Catherine’s façade and pulls her out from her inner safe-house.
Exposed, her sense of self implodes. Catherine must finally rethink who she is.
ILLUSTRATIONS
