Overview
What happens when you no longer recognize the people you were once closest to? What would it take to rebuild your relationship with them, especially in this climate?
Alex Goodson spent years building a life far from where she began, trading a small-town, Catholic, middle-class upbringing for the fast-paced world of New York City journalism. Confident and independent, she has been living unapologetically as a gay, progressive woman in one of the most diverse and busy cities on the planet.
But one voice still echoes louder than the rest: her father’s.
Phil Goodson Sr. is everything Alex is not. He is a seventy-seven-year-old outdoorsman and hunter forged by poverty, faith, and a lifetime of unspoken rules. Between them lies an unyielding divide: politics, class, identity, religion, and years of things left unsaid. His extreme temper clashes with his kindness. The constant whiplash often made Alex question her intuition and crippled her self-esteem, even as an adult.
There were moments when Alex looked at him and saw a stranger, an enigma.
A mountain.
In a quest to literally walk in her father’s shoes and understand him on a deeper level, Alex makes a bold decision. She asks him to go on a hunting trip together in the frozen wilderness of upstate New York where Phil used to hunt with his own father and brothers. Over the course of a year, as they prepare for the trip against the backdrop of the 2024 election, Alex and her father grow closer than ever before.
In a series of unexpected events that happen in the weeks after the hunting trip, Alex is caught between the pull of her father’s expectations and the truth of her own identity. She faces a choice that will define not just their relationship, but her sense of self. Can she honor where she comes from without losing who she is? Or him?
Door in the Mountain is a powerful, unflinching, and timely memoir about family, distance, and the courage it takes to see each other clearly. At its heart lies a quiet revelation: acceptance is a moving target, and reconciliation doesn’t require agreement. It only requires the willingness to love what cannot be changed.
For readers of Educated, Crying in H Mart and The Glass Castle comes a fresh new take on choosing to embrace what’s been passed down through generations, and the fortitude to leave behind what is no longer serving us. Door in the Mountain is a compass for those looking to find their own voice while honoring the roots of where they’ve come from.
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