The Geiger Counter

The following is my foreword to “Fort Unicorn and the Duchess of Knothing,” a memoir being published by Orange Hat/Ten16 Press. The book is written by Andrea Nelson and is available for preorder now. 

When I first met Andrea Nelson, I knew she had a story to tell. It just wasn’t the story I was expecting.

She was setting up a boxing ring, preparing for a tournament she organized. I wrote a newspaper article about the fights, and I knew instantly that this woman, this former professional boxer who loved gardening, going barefoot, and talking about great literature, needed to be featured in a book I was writing at the time. She was, and each time I talked to her, I drew from her unfathomably deep well of experiences.

The thing about Andrea is that you are never really done knowing her. You are never finished learning about her, and her life. The next time I see her, she could begin a story with, “This was when I was working as a cartographer in the Amazon...” or, “Back when I was an astronaut…” and I wouldn’t even bat an eye. When we gather with our families for dinner, she might make an offhand comment about “that bear I fought.” With Andrea, anything is possible.

But amidst her exciting adventures, her true story, the one with the most meaning, brimming with uncommon joy and tremendous sorrow, was hiding in plain sight. A few years ago, when we were first getting to know each other, I saw a flyer she had posted. It said she was looking for her daughter. Shyloh, whose resemblance to her mother was uncanny, was missing. Eventually, I realized that this – Andrea’s search for her daughter – was her real story. This was her journey. Everything else, no matter how exciting it seemed, was merely an aside or a footnote, as she pursued her one true love.

The problem, of course, is that Shyloh was not an easy person to find. Beauty never is. When we go on a quest for truth or meaning or love, we’re chasing a moving and mysterious target. Shyloh was no different, both literally and figuratively. She was always moving, in a geographical sense, but she was also always changing, sometimes dramatically, and her mental illness, drug addiction, and powerful aversion to a cage of any kind made her nearly impossible to find, and completely impossible to hold onto.

In the spring of 2021, Andrea told me she wanted to write a book about her daughter. She asked if she could send pages as she worked on them. In her initial message, she ended with these words: “I’m anxious to hear what you have to say.”

The rest of the year was a barrage of stories: maddening, sickening stories of a mother who would literally fly across the country and wander, on foot, through homeless encampments looking for her daughter. It was the kind of stuff that made you gnash your teeth and grasp at your gut. I read all the stories myriad times, sending back notes and minor edits, as Andrea’s tales gradually turned into a coherent book.

She told me, at the outset, that she was sick of artificial happy endings. She said she wanted to write something true, and the truth was that her daughter was suffering beyond measure, and there would be no happy ending. Andrea hated when I pointed this out, but Shyloh’s story was not entirely tragic. Her defining characteristics were humor, whimsy and creativity. She turned everything she touched into art, and she seemed, at times, to be on a grand adventure. The trail Andrea followed, as she searched for her daughter, was one of beautiful artwork, of forts and heroes and villains and jokes and strange imaginings. Shyloh’s life was a trail of bright colors and fanciful wordplay, of buried treasure and sinister monsters. And then, one day, I woke up and received a text message from Andrea informing me that the trail had stopped. Shyloh had died, in a tent, in California.

A few weeks later, I attended a memorial service for a young woman I had never met in real life, yet seemed to know her far better than many, perhaps most, of the other people whose funerals I’ve attended. I had been reading, and re-reading, her life, over and over again.

With Shyloh’s death, her mother’s search did not end. It merely changed. She had spent years looking for Shyloh in alleys, city parks, and under bridges, on the margins of society. Now, with Shyloh’s body laid to rest, Andrea continued her search. Only she went deeper, further into her daughter’s life, which is so like the countless lives of the unhoused, the addicted, and the mentally ill. People often say they are invisible, hidden outside of our society and outside of our comfortable lives.

Fort Unicorn and the Duchess of Knothing shows us that some things are worth looking for, worth searching for, worth seeing, in all their complicated beauty, even if it means striking out on an uncomfortable journey. Andrea stayed true to her promise not to tack on a happy ending or hollow lesson. But the sadness of the book you hold in your hands does not detract from its beauty, nor from the beauty of the young woman it is about. Things can be horrible and beautiful at the same time, and Shyloh’s story – and her mother’s journey – stand as proof. This is one of the most meaningful, important books you will ever read.

Andrea and Shyloh were closer than the vast majority of parents and children. They were inexorably linked. They still are. Even so, Andrea understood that we must actively seek out the things we love each day, and we can never expect them to come looking for us. Imagine if great painters of old didn’t set out on their searches for sunflowers and angels and gods. When you read this book, you will cry many times. You will shake your fists at inept and uncaring social networks, and you will laugh, several times, at how funny life can be. When you are done reading it (and you will certainly not be able to put it down), you will go out, and search, with new vision and purpose, for the beautiful, meaningful, people and ideas that deserve to be found in our shared world. They can’t always be held onto, or saved forever, but they are real, and they are worth finding. You will know that everyone has a story to tell, and it’s not always the story we were expecting.

Visit www.fortunicorn.org to find out more.