A child of a hoarder-an outcast growing up amid shocking squalor-finds purpose in this vivid memoir.

Broken, alone and buried in a house full of junk and shame, Eddy Gilmore takes the "normal" route out-institutionalized learning. But when college life fails to offer meaning, the young man reaches a turning point, a point at which he abandons social norms, abandons the status quo, and strikes out on his own.

A lifetime of adventure packed into a nine-month "gestational" period awaits: face-to-face encounters with wildlife, a devastating monsoon, a magical winter near the Canadian border,...