Follow the Bone is the author's exploration of what it means to live truthfully and authentically in an increasingly digitized and artificial world, through the author's growth as a woman and hunter in her native Oregon. With raw honesty, Lauren takes the reader through the years she spent post-college learning how to live outside of the structure of academia. As she struggles to balance the demands of a corporate job, a long-term relationship, and the pressure of social media, she brings the reader back to the places and the pursuit that save her. The reader is invited into a world of forests, mountains, trees and wild animals, where the author navigates the reality of being a meat eater with nuance and care. With vivid imagery and a gentle attention to detail, it becomes clear how deeply connected the author is to the world around her through the land, the people she loves and the animals she admires. Her growth as a person and her dedication to living a life of meaning is captured and reflected through her rich prose while she meditates on the outdoor experiences that defined her early twenties. Her stories become an entry point into an existence that lives and breathes close to the land and illustrate how participating fully in a habitat can change our understanding of what it means to be human, while also allowing for the necessity of living in a city. This book provides a narrative that doesn't feature a helpless woman finding herself in the outdoors through various mishaps and mistakes. Rather, it reflects how we all create our conception of self from what we inherit, and how women claiming their identity through the natural world can be a powerful force.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 249-256). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.