Red Emma’s

One night, Virginia Eubanks received the kind of news we all fear. Her beloved partner had been brutally beaten, just steps from their home.

She jumped in the water.

Eubanks dove into the responsibilities of caregiving. In the weeks, months, and years that followed, she and her partner, J., struggled to stay afloat as they faced wave upon wave of setbacks: police disinterest, suspended health insurance, inadequate medical care, lost income, lost friends, endless paperwork, and, for J., a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, a second case. Eubanks herself developed what is known as collateral PTSD, a condition common among caregivers but rarely discussed.

She scanned the horizon for help.

A reporter and an activist, Eubanks turned to reliable sources for guidance: scientists, therapists, trauma theorists, social movements. But it wasn’t until she happened on an old lifesaving manual that she found advice that actually helped. Inspired by its lessons, she signed up for instruction in wilderness first aid, kayak self-rescue, Winter Survival 101, map and compass navigation, bushwhacking, and lifeguarding. She went out in search of other people’s stories and interviewed experts—everyone from neuroscientists to forest rangers. She gathered skills and knowledge that made her feel strong, competent, better prepared for the challenges ahead.

Disarmingly funny and quietly wise, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving is the story—heart-wrenching and all too relatable—of how one woman tried to rescue her beloved and learned that she would also have to rescue herself. Built from both loss and connection, it is a moving, hopeful love story about two people caught in their own kind of wilderness, trying not just to survive but to truly care for each other. It asks that we reconsider the ways in which we tend to our loved ones and ourselves, and remember the communities of care that sustain us. It reminds us: no one survives the wilderness alone.

“What does it feel like to be a caregiver to a person who has experienced trauma? In this book, Virginia Eubanks breaks new ground, rigorously reporting on her own experience with a kind of PTSD shared by millions of Americans, exposing how so many are left in the lurch with this condition—societally, medically and economically. Darkly illuminating, this is also a true pleasure to read, as is its stirring story of later-life transformation and outdoor adventure. This is a book that encourages: despite being an inveterate urbanite, it made me plan to go kayaking on my own. I'm sure many other readers will be made more brave by it as well.”   —Alissa Quart, author of _Bootstrapped _and _Squeezed _and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

Virginia Eubanks is an investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, Nature, and Scientific American. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How HighTech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. She is an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York. When not sleeping in her truck in the Adirondacks, she lives in Troy, New York.

Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (Counterpoint, 2019) and First Comes Love (Pantheon, 1996). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.