Things I Learned from Falling

In 2018, writer Claire Nelson wandered off the trail in a remote part of Joshua Tree and fell more than 25 feet. The fall shattered her pelvis and left her unable to move. She lay there for four days among boulders that muffled her calls for help, while the California sun beat down on her. Her story made international headlines, and the people who found her had not expected her to be alive.

Things I Learned from Falling is her account of both the survival and the fall that led to it. She asks what brought a successful woman in her thirties to a desert trail on the far side of the world from her home, a place where no one knew she was that day.

The memoir tells the story of an almost unbelievable event. It is also a personal journey, following a young woman caught between the unease of her past and her anxiety about the future.